Sweven
by orsumfenix
Summary: For all the non-canon pairings, the weird and the wonderful and the creative. One-shots with random, odd pairings. 6: Gardyloo, Nine and Marina. 'Warning Cry'. The vampires bite you and leave your best friend in a coma. If it weren't for Nine, your fellow vampire and guide to the life, you don't know if you'd be able to make it through. Vampire!AU, Stanrina.
1. Rapture (Eight and One)

**_Basically me wanting to explore pairings that aren't cannon, are never going to be cannon and would be really weird in cannon. Hopefully, people will give me requests (feel free, seriously - I want them) if they are also interested in some rare or unique pairing. That includes Nix and stuff that isn't so much weird as not-canon. You can ask for slash, femslash, whatever, and I'll do my best. _**

**_This_****_ first one (if I do write any more - depends on whether people like it or not) is One and Eight, two characters who have no interactions as far as I can tell, and I'm a hardcore Navrina and Adam/One shipper, but I think it's interesting to see other, more creative pairings in fics. _**

**_Disclaimer - I don't own LL, and never will. But please REVEIW and enjoy! _**

**Sweven - vision seen in sleep, a dream **

**Eight and One **

_Rapture – a state of being carried away by an overwhelming emotion. _

The waves swish gently along the beach, and One looks out with something akin to sadness. The waves look beautiful as they wash up on the sandy shore, changing the light tone slightly darker, and she wishes it were real, if only so she could swim again.

"What are you thinking about?" a voice says beside her, and One turns to look at the only companion she has here – Number Eight. His dark, curly hair hangs in ringlets around his face, framing it gently, and his mischievous green eyes sparkle in the sun.

"Swimming," she replies honestly, surprising even herself as she looks back out across the waves, blue eyes flickering to try and soak up a beautiful sight that never gets old. "It's – I used to do it a lot, you know, before…" She trails off, leaving the sentence unfinished. Not that she needs to continue. They both know what she's talking about.

Eight follows her gaze to the sparkling waves, taking in the sight with the same hunger she always does. He appreciates the beauty of nature, too – it's just a shame that they're stuck with this one place to appreciate.

"Oh," he says softly, and One knows that he _gets_ it, he does, and it's wonderful to know that her only companion understands without having to be told. Out the corner of her eye, she sees him grin slightly, both rueful and wistful at the same time. "Guess it sucks to be stuck here, huh?"

Once again, she doesn't answer. She never has to – not with Eight, who understands everything she wants to say without her having to say it. Not with Eight, who smiles gently at her when he catches her staring when she thinks he isn't looking. Never with Eight, who knows when to respond to her bitchy attitude with a witty quip or a concerned question on whether she's alright.

He's the perfect companion – which is good, because it looks like they'll have to spend eternity together.

* * *

The weather doesn't change and the scenery stays the same, but sometimes she likes to close her eyes and imagine what the beach would look like, say, at night-time. One jams her eyes shut and concentrates, really does, on her memories of what the night looked like, with the stars twinkling down on her and the wind blowing gently across her face, shifting her hair.

She can envision it so well in her head, it shocks her to open her eyes to blinding sunlight.

Eight stands in front of her, looking down at her lying down form, and his lips quirk in bemusement.

"What?" she snaps, irritated more at the fact that she's not back in her head than at his actual expression. "What are you staring at?"

Eight opens his mouth, smile playing on the edges of his lips as though about to say some cheesy pick-up line, before his mouth shuts and his posture turns sad. He can tell that she's upset, missing Life (because that word is so much more than a word, and needs a capital letter), and he doesn't want to press her.

_Good,_ she thinks, satisfied. _Maybe he'll leave me alone now. _

Eight does the opposite, however. He plonks himself beside her, arranging himself into a meditating position, before he screws his face up in what's possibly supposed to be a look of intense concentration, with a furrowed brow and a scrunched-up nose.

"You look constipated," One says bluntly, trying to sound callous and mean, but as she says it an awkward smile comes to her face. "What are you trying to do?"

Eight opens his eyes and laughs, head tilting to the side, curls bobbing as it does so. He has laughter lines around his eyes, and One knows that it wouldn't work for most people around their age – _any_ age, really – but he makes it work. It makes him look happy and joyful, which he kind of is, as opposed to old and weary.

"I'm trying to read your mind, of course," Eight states as though it's a perfectly logical response. One fights the urge to roll her eyes and doesn't quite succeed. _Of course_ he'd come up with a dumb reply like that – and _of course_ he'd know exactly what she needs to cheer her up.

"Oh, yeah? " she teases, deciding to play along, flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder and fluttering her eyelashes. "And what am I thinking, then?"

Eight grins, mock-proud and cocky, puffing up his chest in a way that makes him seem oddly attractive.

"You are thinking," he declares, as though delivering a mightily important speech worthy of royalty. "That I am incredibly handsome and you want me to carry you bridal style across the beach."

It's a slightly weird response, but One laughs anyway, knowing that Eight is pretty much the only form of entertainment that she's going to find here, wherever _here_ is. As she's smiling, mouth hurting slightly from being stretched so wide, she feels a strong pair of arms slipping under her and sweeping her off her feet and into the air.

"Hey!" she exclaims, letting out a small laugh as she does so, and Eight smiles sweetly down at her and makes some comment about royalty and princesses, and One grins as he does, indeed, carry her bridal-style along the beach. He has to stop after a while, and they've made no progress as they flop down on the sand, exhausted, looking like they're in exactly the same place that they left off, but still.

It's nice.

* * *

000

* * *

Often, the two of them wonder why they're here. Is this Heaven? Hell? Limbo? If there is a God, then why did He choose to send them _here_, of all places? Why not a woodland or a desert or the arctic?

To be honest, though, that's not the biggest question. This is Life After Death – what more do they need to know? And it's nice being on a beach. There's a cool view, there's good weather… what more could they want?

No, what they want to know is why it's _only _them here.

One was inside Adam's head as he watched both Two and Three die, so both her and Eight know for a fact that the other two dead Garde should _be here. _

So, where are they?

"Maybe," Eight muses as they lie spread-eagled on the beach one day, garnering One's attention. "It's because we didn't die straight away. Like – we did, but we stuck around afterwards, you know?"

"You mean," One says slowly, running this idea past her own mind as much as Eight's. "Because I hung out in Adam's head and you did something weird with that Lorien thing, we didn't, like pass on properly, or something, and Two and Three did?"

Eight nods, curls rustling as they rub against the sound, and she kind of gets what he means. Kind of.

"I think," he states, sounding kinda depressed as he says it – which is enough to make One pay close attention to whatever he's saying. If there's one thing she knows about Eight, it's that he's never, _ever _outwardly depressed. "When you die-" His voice falters on the word, but he takes a deep breath and keeps going anyway. "I think when you die you get one chance to pass on officially. And if someone forces you to stay behind a bit, well…" He shrugs and doesn't finish, but One gets the message.

They could be stuck here, forever, unable to pass into Heaven or Hell or whatever, simply because _someone else_ wouldn't let them go straight away.

One feels a brief flare of anger for Adam, before the surge dramatically dies. It was never his fault, and seeing as she wasn't in his head straight away, maybe it was something else – some higher deity or Mogodorian scientist (and she can't believe she's comparing the two) saving her, storing her mind.

"Does that mean what I think it does?" she murmurs, letting a slight panic seep into her words. She knows Eight hears it, and knows that he must be feeling it, too, but both of them have just had the same scary thought and now neither can get it out of their head. "Like… we're gonna be stuck here forever? Just you and me?" Not that he's bad company, and she knows that he knows that this isn't what she's saying – she's scared that this is it, that this is all there is ever gonna be, that they're missed their chance forever to move on.

"It's just a theory," Eight says quietly, but those words that have so much weight don't mean a lot.

They're just them trying to delude themselves.

* * *

One runs, and runs and runs and runs towards the waves, and they always get away from her and she growls and frustration, desperately trying to reach them.

"One!" Eight shouts, running after her, feet heavily pattering along the sand and sending grains flying. "One, come back!"

Dimly, in the back of her mind, she registers that she's probably seriously scaring him right now and she really should stop, but despite the ache in her feet and the pounding in her heart she _wants to catch those waves_.

She's done this before, but not since Eight arrived. She did it when she first arrived here, when she vanished from Adam's mind and found herself here in this strange place. She had squinted at the horizon, seeing the beach go on forever in three directions, with the sea being never-ending in the last. She ran along the beach and towards the waves, but no matter how much she runs she never seems to get any closer to the edge.

Eight did it, too, when he first got here, and right now is an alarming reflection of when she chased after him, shouting at him to stop, running after the mysterious boy (she hadn't even known who the hell he _was_) with burning soles on the bottom of her feet.

"One!" he calls again, closer to her now, and she'd put on a burst of speed if she wasn't so exhausted, and she collapses to the ground instead, curling up on herself and breathing harshly.

Eight reaches her side pretty quickly, falling to his knees next to her and murmuring about how it's okay, it's alright and he's here for her.

"It's not fair!" she gasps, ending Eight's mantra as she violently throws her fists down on the ground, sending sand spraying onto her clothes although she really couldn't care less about that right now. "I just want to swim! I want to walk through the waves and reach the sea and it's _not fair_!" One screech the last part, falling down.

She clutches the ground and Eight clutches her and they stay that way until he lifts her up gently and carries her backwards, although the view and the scenery won't change, and she vaguely thinks that he just wants something to do.

She wishes that she could sleep , so she didn't have to be awake all the time, and she wishes that she didn't have to feel so very, very human.

Eight holds her strongly in his arms, and One closes her eyes in exhaustion, though she does not sleep.

* * *

One isn't quite sure how to describe this thing they have – both have described their full histories and feelings to each other, so he knows about Adam and she knows about Marina and both of them know that neither is over their crushes (and maybe the others were something more than that, but she forces that thought out of her mind).

She shoves all images of Adam away as she's sure Eight pushes all of Marina away, and lets him kiss her and kisses him back.

* * *

Sometimes One gets lonely on the beach – Eight is great company, but you can only spend so much time with someone.

The two part ways, sometimes, both wandering off in opposite directions to just… _think_, and reflect on their lives then compared to their lives now, and it always gets to the point where they see each other's figures in the distance and the a lonely pang will echo in their hearts, and so they inevitably wander back to each other.

Eternity is a long time.

At least she gets to spend it with someone.

**_Thanks for reading, and please review and let me know what you think! _**


	2. Shakespeare and Sonnets (Two and Ivan)

**_I personally don't feel as though this chapter is as good as the first, but you know. It's Two and Ivan, which the lovely Carnivorous Moogle suggested, who I would like to thank because even _I_ had never considered that idea before. _**

**_This is kinda an AU where he didn't kill her - not quite sure how that worked out, but there's probably tons of plot holes and unexplained things I didn't feel like going in to. And I don't think I wrote this one very well, the relationship goes a bit fast, but you know - it's an Au and it's a fanfic, it's allowed. _**

**_Disclaimer: Don't own, yada yada. _**

* * *

**Two and Ivan**

_Ivanik Shuh-Ra thinks that Number Two is quite possibly the most annoying girl he's ever met. That is, until she introduces him to literature. Then his perception shifts, and suddenly he doesn't want to kill this girl. AU, somewhat Good!Ivan. _

* * *

The girl is crying again.

Ivan's face frowns with displeasure as he begins to hear the sound of tell-tail sniffs coming from across the hotel room. She's been at it non-stop ever since they left the apartment, and it's really starting to get on his nerves.

"Hey!" he barks, feeling a surge of sadistic satisfaction small, surprised gasp she makes. "Shut up! I'm tryin' to sleep."

The little girl doesn't respond, but the sniffles die out a bit after that, enough for him to comfortably rest. Ivan turns on his side and breathes out harshly. Stupid Adam, making him wait to kill the Garde. He has a strong urge to just slaughter her in her bed right now.

Ivan rises and grabs the hilt of his knife after a couple of seconds, intending to do just that. Despite his bulging muscles and large shape, he's actually quite capable of being stealthy, and he uses his years of intensive training to make it across the room in practical silence.

He stands over the little girl's bed – because she is simply a little girl, very much so – and looks down at her. Her curly red hair, barely visible in the dark, springs and looks like it might be slightly puffier than before (not that he cares) and her skin seems pale, almost the same shade as _his_. But it's not any of this which catches and holds his attention.

No, it's her big brown eyes that do that, looking back up at him with nothing but pure and utter _fright_.

He stares back, impassive in the face of her terror – revelling in it, even. She whimpers a little, and Ivan resists the urge to either roll his eyes or strangle her.

Then he remembers what he was planning – do it in public, where everyone can see. Where _Setrakus Ra _can see. Then no one can deny that he is great, and that he killed her magnificently.

Ivan turns on his heel and goes back to bed.

000

"Last night," Number Two begins hesitantly, as he does his routine sit-ups on the floor, sweat beading his forehead. "Why didn't you kill me?"

Ivan pauses for a second to smirk.

"Did you want me to?"

"No!" the girl yelps out, flushing the same colour as her hair and fidgeting as she hurries to correct herself. "I just – I was just wondering that's all." It's a lame excuse, even if it's probably true, but Ivan is surprised to find he doesn't mind her hurried talking. It's better than last night's crying, at least.

"Isn't it obvious?" he states in something of a rhetorical question, standing up and stretching out, admiring the way his muscles bulge as he does so. He is _so _much stronger than Adam. "I'm saving you."

Two takes a second for that to sink in.

"You – you are?" she questions, hesitantly. "You're… _rescuing _me?"

Ivan snorts, picking up an apple on the hotel table and biting into it harshly.

"Not in _that_ way," he scoffs, not caring that his mouth is still full and he probably looks a mess right now. "I'm – _preserving_ you, more like, until the time when I can go back my people and present you to the Beloved Leader."

The little girl looks sick at that, turning slightly green against her freckles, that splatter delicately across her cheeks. As she turns away, Ivan can see the tears in her eyes.

He rolls his own.

000

The girl is reading.

"What are you doing?" he asks, regretting it the moment he does. Number Two looks slightly shocked, but at the same time honoured that he has. It makes him want to roll his eyes in disgust, so he does. The redhead either doesn't notice or doesn't care.

"I'm reading," she says matter-of-factly, and _damn_ if that isn't the most confident that Ivan has ever heard her. "Shakespeare. It's a sonnet, because he wrote poetry as well as plays, which isn't something that many people seem to know…" She trails off at his expression, folding in on herself slightly with both fear and shyness.

"I don't care," he snarls, and he _doesn't, _he _really _doesn't. "_Why_ would I _care_ about _Shakespeare_?"

There is silence for a couple tense moments before Two's gentle but firm answer comes.

"Because you asked."

Ivan doesn't even bother to dignify that with an answer – he just scowls and picks up another apple, biting harshly into it and feeling an odd sort of satisfaction at the _crunch _that it makes. Two flinches and turns away, back to his book.

He roughly wipes away trails of juice that run down his chin, and stalks off to go find something to punch outside. He doesn't worry about Number Two leaving in the meantime. She wouldn't dare.

000

When he comes back into the hotel room, having consumed enough alchahol to have a fuzzy head and a slightly blurry vision but not enough to classify as 'drunk', he vaguely notes that the girl is asleep in her bed. He _knew_ she wouldn't leave. She's too much a coward. It probably didn't even occur to her beyond wishful fantasies.

As he walks past the book she was reading earlier, he pauses, picking it up.

If he stays up late reading it, then it is no one's business but his.

000

Number Two seems not to notice that he has even _touched_ her precious little book the next morning. She picks it up and begins reading without saying a single word – she either doesn't know or doesn't care. Ivan suspects that it is the former rather than the latter – or rather, he _hopes_ it is. Because he doesn't know what he'll do if she's noticed.

If he's entirely honest, he doesn't know what he'll do even considering that she's _not_. Reading and appreciation literature has always been _Adam's_ thing, not his, and – well, he's _embarrassed_, if he's entirely honest with himself (and he's a fan of being blunt). He doesn't want to admit to _anyone_ that he actually _enjoyed_ reading those sonnets last night (god, he actually knows the name for them), much less the enemy he's somehow found himself staying in a hotel room with.

"What was your favourite?" Two asks randomly, and it takes a blank moment for him to catch up with what's being said before the Garde (filthy Loric _scum_, why is he even _interacting_ with her) is pinned up roughly against the wall, his arm digging into her throat.

"_None of them_," he hisses, belatedly realising that he just totally gave the game away. He mentally shrugs. Oh well, too late now. He'll just have to deal with this situation with the only way he knows how – with violence. "I didn't like _any_ of them, because they were _stupid_, pointless, _pathetic_ pieces of _trash_…"

He trails off, something _very_ un-Ivan-like as he looks into the Garde's eyes. She looks scared and meek sure, but still, there's an element of… _defiance_ that he can't help but be attracted towards (and he hates himself as soon as he does, trying to wipe all thoughts of _that _kind from out of his head)(It doesn't work).

"No," she says quietly, and he's shocked enough to loosen his grip tightly. He half expects her to take advantage of his slack and wriggle out but, no. Number Two (and when did he stop thinking of her as the little girl? Overnight? It must have been,) simply stares up at him, a burning fire in her eyes he never expected to see there. "You enjoyed them. I know you did."

She stops, hesitating, and Ivan doesn't even bother shouting at her to shut up. He doesn't strangle her or scream or let spittle fly out of his mouth and onto her disgusting, filthy, _Loric_ skin. He simply growls and stomps out with one aim in mind – to get brain-dead drunk.

He tells himself that she isn't worth the anger, anyhow.

000

The next day it's like nothing ever happened until he kisses her.

She jumps and pushes him away and he lets her, watching as she runs out this time, and he doesn't try to stop her even though he _could_. Ivan has stopped her from leaving before, but this time he watches her go with something akin to sadness and wonders how his life became so screwed up in so little time because of some stupid poems by _Shakespeare_.

(If he reads the rest of the book that night, he doesn't care enough to even mind, anymore.)

000

He doesn't expect Two to return, but she does, and for some reason Adam is there and next thing Ivan knows Adam is in the front seat of a massive Jeep and Two and Ivan are both cramped in the back.

"My name is Maggie," Two says randomly partway through the journey, and Adam glances back at the two of them through the rear-view mirror, taking in the tension between them before his eyes flicker away. Adam may be a traitor, but he knows when not to get involved.

"Okay," Ivan says, and he feels dumb but he lets _Number Two_ be replaced by _Maggie_ in his mind and, somehow it works.

He doesn't want to kill Maggie anymore. He wants to save her, yes, but in a rescue way.

He and Adam are both deserters now.

* * *

**_Like I said, not as good, but still - we can always pretend that one of Two's legacies is attracting people towards her (actually, I might use that premise for something later). _**

**_Anyway, thanks for reading and please review and make suggestions! _**


	3. Melancholia (Six and Marina)

**_This is a pairing I found a recent love for, and it's been suggested by both the alphabet soup and The Book Queen. Thank you everyone for your suggestions and reviews! _**

**_Disclaimer: I don't own LL. Don't claim to. Just own my depressing storylines. _**

* * *

**Six and Marina **

* * *

_Melancholia - depression, sadness_

_Depressing as hell. Marina has grown to love Six, and that bond only strengthens with them being the only ones left. But the world has determined that it is not to be, and Marina is powerless to stop it. _

* * *

The night after Sam is killed, Marina doesn't speak to Six. She climbs silently in to the motel room bed, going through the motions with a numbness she is almost used to by now (_almost_). She sits for a couple moments, glancing in the direction of her companion.

Six stands facing the window, dark clothes blending in with the shadows. Every line of her body is harsh and jagged, tensely cutting through the night's grasp. The Loric is not even bothering to sit down. She just looks outside, stock still, gazing at the horizon visible from through the window. The only part of her moving is her eyes, which Marina can see reflected, darting about and facing upwards, as though Six is searching the constellations.

Marina opens her mouth to say something, to convince Six to rest, to not exhaust herself, but she thinks the better of it and her mouth closes almost on automatic.

There will be no words tonight.

* * *

She dreams of Eight.

* * *

In the morning they spar. Marina is pleased to say that she has improved vastly since her days at the orphanage, but that doesn't change the fact that she is fighting against Six and Six will always be better, no matter how much Marina tries, no matter how much effort she puts in. This is a fact of life, and Marina has long since come to accept it.

Six wins, but barely. She has been fighting robotically, Marina has known her long enough to see that; Six goes through the motions but without _e_motion, just doing it all without any feeling or passion. It's a startling thing to witness, but not something that Marina is unused to by now.

She's lost people. So has Six. Grief isn't new.

They leave hastily after lunch, under the guise of wanting to avoid the Mogs, but both of them know the truth, though they leave the words unspoken – they just want to get away from Sam. Sam and his ghost, lingering around the motel room, sending chills down Marina's spine whenever she sees the blood-stained necklace of his. It was all they were able to recover.

Marina isn't even surprised when, in a café they stop at, Six throws the necklace in the bin.

They sleep in the truck. Well – Marina sleeps. Six just sits in the driver's seat, staring onto the empty road, eyes hollow and haunted.

Marina curls up under a blanket – it is old and worn and frayed at the edges, but she has slept in worse conditions before and she has no right to complain when Sam is probably still lying on a dirty warehouse floor.

* * *

She dreams of Nine.

* * *

They speak to each other for the first time whilst driving on the road, and Marina is glad – if they had stayed silent much longer, then she fears that she would have gone insane.

"What do you dream about?" Six says abruptly, and Marina looks towards her only to find the other girl's eyes still fixed firmly on the road. Marina is a little startled by the sudden question, and quite shocked by the content, but right now she's just so glad that they're _talking_ that she doesn't voice her concerns.

"The others," she answers truthfully, wringing her hands in her lap. It's a nervous habit she's picked up, one that Six has been trying to drill out of her, and it only takes one sharp look from the girl herself to make Marina stop. "Before, mostly."

"Okay," Six carries on, and Marina can almost swear that she can see a little smirk playing around the corners of her lips. "Next question – _who_ do you dream about?"

Marina responds straight away.

"Eight," she murmurs softly. "Nine. John." She looks towards her companion, the warrior who has to fight both her enemies and herself. Marina knows the feelings. She's got plenty inner demons of her own. They only make her hesitate for a few seconds before carrying on, honesty coating her voice. "You."

Six nods, as though she has been expecting this answer, her eyes still fixed firmly on the road ahead. She has a right, Marina supposes.

It would be horrible to crash. It wouldn't be a nice way to die, even if she would be comforted by not going alone.

Marina returns her own eyes to the scenery, but not before noticing the beginnings of a small, genuine smile around the corners of Six's lips. She doesn't double check in case she's wrong. She wants to believe that Six can be happy, even if it's only her imagination.

* * *

She dreams of John.

* * *

Their words are little, but often, and it's enough of a step up from a few nights ago to allow Marina to let go of the glances Six sends her way, the odd ones with little quirks around the corners of her lips that could be smiles or frowns.

Marina has dreamt many times of Six, of course, each dream differing vastly in the details, but each wonderful. They all end the same – with Six's lips on hers, and Marina waking up with the ghost of phantom love hovering.

When Six kisses her for real, Marina at first thinks that it is another dream. Surely it must be, even though she is sure that she did not fall asleep and, if she did, then surely she wouldn't dream about standing by the truck at the edge of the forest? But the moon is like a god hanging in the sky, and the constellations are beautiful, and Marina thinks that perhaps this is the best dream that she has ever had.

She allows herself to melt into the kiss – it isn't real, after all – and blinks slowly, wanting to revel at the sight in front of her. Six's eyes are shut, though that does not impede her beauty; Marina thinks that it would be a shame to close her eyes, and lose track of such a wonderful sight.

When Six pulls away, it is as though she can read Marina's thoughts – for she smiles, and sinks gently down from her tiptoes. (Marina finds it funny that, of all things, their height difference is what she is noticing now.)

"You're not dreaming, Marina," Six says with sincerity, and of course Marina believes her and she wonders why they haven't kissed before.

There's plenty to make up for, and they get started right away.

* * *

She doesn't dare let herself dream of Ella.

* * *

Her life with Six isn't a dream, and for that Marina is thankful. She finds herself smiling more and more often, and Six's smiles are few and far between but they are _there_, and they allow Marina to ignore the way these things go, the way all things go in her life.

(Everyone she loves dies. And that includes Ella, because Ella is dead inside and Marina is stupid to ever have thought that Six could escape the same fate.)

There is a beast of a man, if he can even be called that, and he laughs at them as they clutch each other's hands tightly.

"You are too weak to fight me!" Setrakus Ra exclaims, and Ella is still as a statue beside him, impassive, and it helps to shatter Marina's already broken heart.

"I am not too weak," Six states calmly, and Marina can see in her eyes that she has accepted the challenge, that Marina has already lost before she has begun.

"Six, don't you _dare_," she warns, but her lover is already walking away. "_Six!_" She screams, shrieks, and she will shout it for the whole world to hear, everyone, she doesn't care. They can listen, listen as she screams. "_Six_, don't you _dare_!"

But Six had dared, and Marina knows that it is hopeless. She will have to watch, and suffer in silence.

"I have suffered so much," is all Six says as she approaches, as Setrakus Ra pulls out his long execution sword and that's all that this is, really. "This will be a relief."

Marina doesn't even bother to scream – she watches, empty, as the limp body crumples to the floor and thinks_ why_.

* * *

She can't sleep, but she doesn't need to be sleeping to dream of Six.

* * *

Setrakus Ra decides to make a big spectacle of Number Seven's execution, and as Marina looks out upon the thousands of milling faces, dirty and grimy and bloody, she realises that she no longer cares.

(She is a hollow husk of a girl, and she never even had a choice.)

She didn't _want_ any of this, didn't want _any_ of it, but she _did_ want Eight and Nine and Six and she thinks that this is her punishment, though if it is she doesn't care enough to regret anything.

"Any last words?" Setrakus Ra asks, smiling cruelly and grimly, and Marina doesn't dare look at the small form by his side, for fear of never being able to look away.

She looks upon the crowd, and asks them the questions she's been wondering herself for a long time now.

"What am I even fighting for?" she asks, and when she gets no response she looks to the sky and speaks to there. If the living will not answer her, then perhaps the dead will. "Well, Six? You always insisted on keeping going, but you gave up in the end." She lets a bitter laugh bubble up in her throat. "You left me here alone."

She thinks that she must look mad, and the humans in the crowd would surely be laughing if they weren't as they are now, beaten down and broken and so very, very hollow inside.

Marina somehow forces herself to keep her eyes open, and she starts to say something – she doesn't even know what – but then the sword swings and she would follow Six down to the grave if she thought that she was going to get one.

Marina dies with a smile on her lips.

* * *

**_So. Morbid. _**

**_But, I hope you enjoyed and please review! _**


	4. Infatuated (Nine and One)

**_This was suggested by Glory of Lorien - Nine/One. I think this one is probably a bit OOC, but it was fun to write and a nice change from the angst of the other chapters, so hopefully that can be forgiven. _**

**_Disclaimer: I don't own LL, but I would love some reviews! _**

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**Nine and One **

_Having people randomly attracted towards you sounds fun until you actually experience it. That's what One finds, anyway. Nine isn't being very subtle about how he suddenly feels about her, which is even worse. At least the others are actually trying to contain themselves. AU in which One lives to meet the others. _

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Having people randomly attracted towards you sounds fun until you actually experience it. That's what One finds, anyway.

When Nine leans in to kiss her for the fifth time that day, she finally can't contain it any longer and punches him. _Hard_. And never mind the fact that it isn't really his fault, because even though she knows some of the others must feel equally attracted toward her right now, they're holding it back to preserve both her and their dignity, which Nine clearly has none of.

"Ow!" the younger Garde exclaims, clutching a bleeding nose, and One can't even bring herself to feel sorry for him. "That hurt!"

"That's for being a dick," she announces, feeling a bit guilty because Ella's in the room and staring wide-eyed, but she feels that Nine kind of does deserve it so she storms out before he can kick off at her.

000

She first experienced something like this a couple of weeks ago, when _Sam Goode_, of all people, lent in for a kiss. Of course, One immediately decked him, and when she got up in his face and demanded that he explain what on _Lorien_ he was doing, he had stammered that he didn't know and that he was very sorry and clearly very confused.

One had written it off as Sam having some sort of puppy crush on her, despite him being 'an item' with Six (which One may or may not have openly encouraged), but when later that day she suddenly found herself locking lips with Two, who had gone as red as her hair, and later John, who was _definitely_ in a steady relationship with Sarah Hart – well, One started to clock on that something was wrong.

Turns out that she's developed a new legacy – to attract people towards her. Which has always sounded fun, but now that's it's actually happening it's not as great as she initially thought. If she's entirely honest, she probably would have found it _hilarious_ if was happening to anyone but her.

But, alas, it's not happening to anyone but her, and with Nine being the only one not trying to hold back his sudden attraction, it's kind of annoying.

000

"Did you punch Nine?" Adam asks later, sitting next to her as she flicks through the channels on the big TV screen of Nine's Chicago penthouse. It would be a nice place to live, One thinks, if didn't belong to Nine.

"He deserved it," she declares, settling for some show about male swimming athletes. They're nice to gawk at. "He was being a dick."

Adam raises an eyebrow, folding his arms and smirking slightly.

"Apparently you said," he drawls, leaning back, and he may be her best friend but damn it if she doesn't want to kill him right now. "In front of Ella. I think you traumatised her."

One huffs and scowls, and on a good day she would be able to laugh along with him but today _isn't_ a good day and so she can't.

"If anyone traumatised Ella," she announces, ogling at the good-looking topless boy on screen. He has nice muscles. "It was Nine, snogging me like that."

"It is kind of _your_ legacy," Adam points out, and One could punch him for being right. "If he's suddenly more attracted to you than usual, then it's technically _your_ fault."

"It is not!" One snaps, irritated beyond belief, and Adam opens his mouth, probably to say something sarcastic and snarky and _right_, so she throws a cushion at him and grins victoriously when it hits him in the face. "Ha!"

Adam smirks, and next thing One knows the two of them are caught in an all-out cushion war and she can _almost_ forget what Adam said about Nine being 'more attracted than _usual_'.

000

Nine tries to kiss again the next day, and this time One doesn't punch him in the face – she knees him in the stomach.

Nine goes red and starts gasping for air, and One grins widely, enjoying the sight perhaps a little _too_ much, before walking out and looking for somewhere private to help herself calm down.

She would go to Adam, but Adam's out on some sort of date with Mark (not that Nine knows – for all his bravado, he hates it when people go out in public and he can't protect them) leaving her without the guidance of her best friend. Majority of the people she knows will probably end up trying to restrain themselves from kissing her, and last time she went out in public she had to run home followed by hundreds of people that suddenly fancied her. That wasn't fun. At. All.

She ends up going to Malcolm, of all people.

"You have _got _to help me," she groans, flopping down onto a wooden chair beside him and ignoring his raised-eyebrowed look. "Nine keeps trying to snog me and I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

Malcolm, adjusts his glasses and leans forward, looking thoughtful.

"Have you tried controlling your new legacy at all?" he asks, all scientific-like, and One finds it slightly off that she's a Loric going to a human about her legacies. She groans in frustration.

"I don't know _how_!" she exclaims, throwing her hands up and burying her face in them. "All the others can hold themselves back, but, for _some_ reason, _Nine_ can't!"

She peeks out to see Malcolm rubbing his chin and holding his glasses in his left hand, frowning slightly.

"You said the others can contain themselves," he begins, and One mentally prepares herself for some long lecture. "Perhaps they couldn't at first, but as soon as they became aware of what was going on, they were able stop. Nine, however is unable, despite knowing. Perhaps that is because…" He trails off, and One decides to insert the reason herself.

"It's _because_ he's a dick," she announces, finally taking her hands fully down in order to fold them as she huffs. "It comes naturally to him."

"Language," Malcolm chastises disapprovingly, but his heart doesn't seem to be in telling her off. "No, I think it's something else. Perhaps, his prior attraction towards you has been heightened, instead of simply introduced like with the others…"

"Huh." Then, as the words fully sink in. "Wait, _what_?! What do you mean, _prior attraction_?"

Malcolm simply raises an eyebrow.

"I thought you knew about Nine's feelings towards you," he states, with an evil glint in his eye that he's _definitely_ too old to have. "Everyone else certainly does. His little crush has been rather obvious for a while now."

One splutters, and she thinks that this would be _excellent _blackmail material if he was actually _attempting_ to keep it hidden.

She can't cope with this right now, so she walks off and prays to Lorien that she won't walk past Nine on her way out.

000

"How was your little _date_ with Mark?" One asks both sarcastically and bitterly as Adam walks in after several hours of her being cooped up all alone. Adam grins at her, and some small part of her is relieved to see that his smile is actually genuine at the thought. Well, good for him. At least _someone's_ currently lucky-in-love.

"It was wonderful, thank you," Adam replies flippantly, before frowning at her. "What's up with _you_?"

She scowls, picking at the loose thread of a cushion.

"According to _Professor Goode_," she bites out, grumpily folding her arms. "_Nine_ has a crush on me." Then, "Why didn't you _tell_ me?" Adam blinks.

"What? Oh, I thought you knew."

"I did _not_!" she exclaims, both feeling irritated and comforted by the little smirk tugging at the corners of Adam's mouth. "And you _knew_ I didn't know! You kept it from me on purpose!"

Adam does smirk now, and she huffs at his annoyingly smug face. "Now why would I do something like that?" One narrows her eyes at him, because he knows _exactly_ why.

"Because you're a snarky little troll who does things like that," she announces, and she's not even sorry because Adam wouldn't be her best friend if he was anyone but himself.

"Well, it's hard to deny that," Adam admits, and a smile comes to One's face despite herself. "Besides," Adam continues. "Nine told Mark to tell me _not_ to tell you because he knew you didn't feel the same way or whatever." He shrugs. "Wasn't really my business."

"Like you've _ever_ cared whether it's your business or not," One complains, but stands up and stands straight anyway. Adam somehow manages to frown and grin at the same time, which is something One has found that only he is able to do.

"Where are _you _going?" he calls out as she walks off.

"To talk to Nine!" she hollers back, and she can imagine Adam's face right now without even having to look – eyebrows raised, eyes wide, massive smirk.

As she walks out she only just manages to stop herself from walking straight into Mark. The human stares at her with wide eyes, smiling slightly awkwardly.

"Um, hey," he greets nervously. From what One can tell he's normally pretty cocky, but he's been scared to death of her ever since he started dating Adam and she shouted in his face to never break the Mogodorian's heart. She feels a bit bad about that now, but she can't pretend like she doesn't at least _slightly_ enjoy Mark's fear of her. "Is, uh – is Adam in there?"

"He's in there," she tells him, grinning in what she knows is a slightly evil way, and Marks looks nervous as he manoeuvres awkwardly around her.

Then she squares her shoulders and stalks off to meet Nine.

000

"We're going to have a little _talk_," she tells Nine, and she can see him getting ready to leap at her for a kiss, but he must see something on her face that firmly tells him _no_ because he stays sitting on the sofa.

Marina, Six and Eight are in there with him, and it only takes a look from One for Six to convince them to leave.

"Come on, guys," Six says, unreadable smirk on her face as he gets up and starts to walk out, the other two in tow. "Let's leave these little _lovebirds_ alone together." And Six has been a wonderful friend to One up until now, but that one sentence is enough to make the older girl want to murder the smaller Garde right there. She settles for a harsh glare instead.

"Nine," One says abruptly once they've left, shifting her glare to the male. He gulps, wide-eyed, and One wonders why she is able to make every normally cocky-and-confident boy terrified of her. "Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to sit down, and you're going to stay where you are, and you absolutely _are not_ going to move closer to me or try to grope me or snog me in _any way_. Got it?"

Nine does get it, and nods awkwardly, and One allows herself to smile broadly as she plops down on the sofa at the opposite end to him.

"Good."

There is silence for a couple moments as One waits expectantly for an apology. She doesn't get one.

"I really do like you, you know," Nine tells her, and for some reason he's smirking and it's enough to make her narrow her eyes and wonder what type of game he's playing here. "I'm not just kissing you for the hell of it. That's not something I'd do – well, okay, it _is_," he admits at her sceptical look. "But not with you. You're… different. You're special."

It's nice to be called special, but One has no way of knowing whether it's Nine or her new legacy talking, and it's confusing.

"I am?" she says dumbly, and she can remember a certain surfer boy saying something quite similar once, years ago, and to have it repeated is almost too good to be true. She frowns. "Stop _lying_, Nine. _You_ just want to get laid."

"No, I don't," he protests, and it's such an _un-Nine_ thing to say that One stops and listens for a few moments. "This is about you and me, not about getting laid. I mean, that would be a _definite_ bonus," One snorts at the typically-Nine statement before he continues. "But mainly, I just want to take you to a beach somewhere and talk about… you know. Stuff." One is so focused on his lack of skills with words to let herself think about the beach statement very much, but as soon as she does it isn't hard to figure out who told him what she likes.

"You've been talking to Adam, haven't you?" she accuses, and he grins in a totally shameless way.

"He's been talking to me, more like. Well, _at_ me. All about how to make you happy and win you over and like, he threatened me not to hurt you or he'd kill me." Nine gets an odd look on his face. "I… _think_ he was joking…"

"How dare he!" One interrupts, ignoring Nine blinking and smirking at her. Seems like the whole _world_ is smirking at her at the moment – bastards, the lot of them. "How dare… he _interfere_ with my love life like that..."

"Didn't you basically set him and Mark up?" Nine points out, and One wants to shout that "it's not the same!" except that it kind of is and Nine does have a point. (Damnit, everyone _always_ has a point.)

One chooses to save her dignity on at least _some_ scale by ignoring his statement and leaning back into the couch, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully. She frowns, because she can feel Nine moving towards her slowly and she knows what's coming.

But, this time, she lets him kiss her, and is pleasantly surprised by the fact that Nine can, in fact, kiss quite well.

That doesn't mean she's going to make a habit of this.

* * *

**_I might write a companion piece to this about Adam or Mark, or some sort of sequel, but right now I'm working on a Sarah/Six where Katarina survived and Six came to Paradise High in place of John, which should be interesting! _**

**_Thanks for reading, and please review! _**


	5. Yare Pt1 (Sarah and Six)

_**This chapter has exhausted me to no end, and ended up being horrifically long, even with this only being Pt.1. Part.2 isn't going to be next up, unfortunately - next is a Nine/Marina Vampire!AU, which should be fun. **_

_**This ended up being more about Six's character development, which was difficult to do because going to the beginning of IAN4 and Six not losing Katarina has undone a LOT of character development that has happened since. This is long, as I said - over double the size of the other chapters put together. Sorry about that. Six/Sarah was suggested by the alphabet soup - thank you for the suggestion, as I'd never thought of that! **_

_**Disclaimer: I don't own LL. I do own some of the original characters in this chapter - however, I believe them to be well thought out and, well **_**original_. Anyway, enjoy and please review! _**

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**Sarah and Six**

_Yare_ - Marked by quickness and agility; nimble; prepared; easily handled. Six is ready for anything upon arriving in Paradise High, Ohio. Anything except Sarah Hart. [In which Six is there in place of John, and things are a whole lot better and a whole lot worse because of it.]

* * *

Six stares at the people all hanging out outside, already in cliques and laughing and having fun and _normal_, and can't help but feel a little intimidated despite herself. She's the new girl, the independent variable – the outlier.

Still, Katarina has always taught her to be strong, and how can Six expect to defeat a whole army of Mogs if she backs down from a challenge like _school_? So she squares her shoulders, trying to make herself look taller than she is – her smallish height can be viewed as both an advantage or a disadvantage in a fight, but in social situations it is definitely one of the latter.

The bell goes and she strides inside like she owns the place, ignoring the staring and the whispering as everyone takes in the tough new girl. She refuses to be weak and beg for friendship or something of the sort – she is simply herself, and no one else, and the Mogs won't take pity on you just because you're more pathetic than them, if that's even possible.

000

As soon as Six gets inside her classroom, she is greeted by wolf whistles and "hey, beautiful"s from all around, but she ignores them. When she walks down the aisle to her seat, some guy with black hair tries to grab her ass; she catches his wrist in an iron grip and glares at him for several seconds, before he weakly stammers that he's sorry and allows her to go.

Six smirks as she sits down, the wide eyes of everyone in the class staring at her.

If they think that she's some kind of weak little girl, then they've got another thing coming.

000

"Hey," a voice says after class. Six looks to the side to see a pretty blonde girl smiling at her, camera hanging round her neck. She and the girl are being stared at by everyone in the hallway, but that doesn't stop the other girl from raising the camera, still smiling widely. "Mind if I take your picture?"

Six _does_ mind, as a matter of fact, but before she can get a chance to say so the girl snaps the photo anyway. Six blinks, simultaneously thinking _oh god, there is a picture of me in the world_ and _who even_ is_ this girl_? But the girl carries on speaking, unaware of her inner turmoil.

"I'm Sarah," she introduces, letting the camera hang around her neck once more. "Sarah Hart."

"I'm Maren," Six responds with, the lie rolling easily off her tongue. "Maren Elizabeth Jones."

Sarah is still grinning, and it's quite unnerving.

"So, where are you from, Maren Elizabeth Jones?" she asks, randomly linking arms with Six and beginning to lead her away to god-knows-where. Six fights the urge to tear her grip away, instead having to settle for clenching her teeth behind closed lips and tolerate it. "Not Paradise, that's for sure." She laughs, and it's a nice sound, Six thinks.

"I move around a lot," she informs, and it isn't technically a lie. "But I came directly from…" She whizzes through places in her head, internally cursing herself for not thinking up a suitable lie for this earlier. "Chicago," she settles on, hoping that the pause hasn't given her away.

Sarah doesn't seem to notice it, though. She just nods.

"What brings you to little old Paradise, then?" she carries on questioning, pulling Six down to sit with her as she does so. Suddenly she's faced by the stares of the other girls that Sarah apparently sits with, and she forces herself to smile awkwardly.

"My mum is doing a study," she lies as if it's second nature, meeting the eyes of everyone on the table as if daring them to doubt her. "She's looking at how large and small communities can impact people's attitudes towards each other."

Everyone nods and a couple mutter that it's quite interesting. Sarah looks especially fascinated, but seems to snap straight back into remembering something.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot!" she exclaims, gesturing to Six. "Everyone, this is Maren Elizabeth Jones. Maren, this is Emily Goring, Yuna Kobayashi, Macia Blaszak and Binta William-Aguda." All the girls nod, greeting 'Maren' and reintroducing themselves, and Six just nods and smiles back, wondering how she's gotten into the situation of having to make friends.

The answer would, of course, be _Sarah Hart_.

000

Six has never been one to let the underdog get trampled on, so when she meets Sam Goode – geeky, teased and mercilessly picked-on – she decides that if she's going to end up with friends, so is he.

The boy trying to rough him up – the one from earlier, the one who tried to pinch her bum – soon finds himself on the floor looking up in shock at Six, with a sore area around his eye which will soon turn black, and Six just glares at him until he gets up and hurriedly leaves.

"Um," the geeky boy stammers, looking terrified. "Thanks, I guess." Six is ready to walk off and let it all be forgotten by then, but he stops her by carrying on. "I'm Sam, by the way. Sam Goode." She internally sighs, wondering if she's doomed to have _everyone_ try and make friends with her, but she gives up her (admittedly false) name anyway.

"Maren Elizabeth Jones," she states, wondering why Katarina chose such an absurdly long name – seriously, just Maren Jones would do – but Sam decides that he's going to comment on it.

"Wow, that's… that doesn't suit you at all. You look like, an Eagle or something."

Six is stunned enough to stare at him blankly, and he blushes and hurriedly stammers, "sorry, that was weird, I'll shut up now…"

"No," she interrupts, somehow finding a smile falling on to her lips. "No, it's okay. Eagle is a cool name. I might change mine to Eagle when I'm older." Then she grins, teeth displayed fully for the first time since she got here, and she wonders why Sam looks a bit scared.

"Um… okay," he says a bit weakly, and this, _this_ is why she's bad at making friends, so she awkwardly wanders off and curses herself for letting her guard down and getting involved.

000

"How was your first day?" Katarina asks, and Six just nods absentmindedly.

"It was good," she responds with, and Katarina must sense that she wants to be left alone because she doesn't press any further.

Six is glad for it.

000

As Six is walking down the corridor with Sarah and Emily, the black-haired-boy shoots her a glare that Six blanches at. _If looks could kill…_

"Who_ is_ that?" she asks once he's firmly behind them and out of earshot. Sarah glances behind them and sighs as she spots the boy, nose scrunching up. Emily rolls her eyes.

"That's Mark James," the latter girl informs, casting a brief look at said teenager before her eyes flicker back to Six's. "Resident jock and massive jerk." Six just nods, disinterested. Sounds like that kid from the ship – she can't remember his number, near the end, she thinks – he was rude and obnoxious and overly loud. He had black hair, too – long and scraggly. It seems to be a thing.

"He's okay once you get to know him," Sarah cuts in, smiling weakly. "You just… don't know him."

"Sarah!" Emily exclaims. "How can you say that? He was effecting you with his jerkishness, we could all see it."

Six is bored by this already, so she decides to cut in with her opinion on the matter.

"Boys are stupid," she declares, ignoring the funny looks sent from people around her. She kind of said that a bit loud. "You're better off just ignoring them."

"Amen to that," a Hispanic girl in the corridor by her says, and next thing she knows she's got several other girls nodding and agreeing with her. "Hey," the same girl says. "You're the new girl, right?" At Six's nod, she grins and moves toward her, extending a hand. "Hi," she greets. "I'm Madeira."

"Maren," she responds with, the lie rolling easily off her tongue. As she shakes Madeira's hand, she takes in the other girl. Madeira is smallish, but since Six is too they seem about the same height. She has dark curly hair that frames her face and reaches just past her shoulders, sitting under a battered green baseball cap. Her outfit is odd – denim jacket, black leggings a white shirt clinging to her tightly, but all personalised, with little sewn and drawn on doodles.

She hopes that Madeira will let it go there and then, but instead the girl carries on pressing.

"Where are you from, Maren?" she asks, doing the thing that Sarah did yesterday, taking her arm and beginning to lead her away from the spot where she'd been standing. Sarah and Emily follow behind them, and Six notes vaguely that Binta has now joined them. She sighs. If she's going to end up with friends, might as well make an effort to be civil.

"Directly? Chicago," she answers, making sure to stick to her earlier lie. "But mainly I move around a lot."

Madeira nods and grins.

"Sounds fun!" she exclaims, and Six has no doubt that it does sound exactly that way to Madeira. Then the other girl sighs mournfully. "I wish I had moved around a lot as a kid. My mum and her side of the family, they're from Portugal, but I've never even been." She scuffs the ground with her toe as they walk, and Six has to raise an eyebrow at how dramatic this other girl is. "So not fair. _Graciela_ got to go – she's my older sister, by the way – and I think that I was gonna go, but, well, that was before the _accident_…"

Much in that fashion, Madeira continues to chat and blabber about herself and her heritage and her family, not seeming to realise that Six doesn't really care. Somehow, though, she finds herself listening in and, somehow, just slightly interested.

000

Due to some fluke, Six finds that Maren Elizabeth Jones has managed to become the most popular person in the school in a matter of days.

000

On her third day, a girl with dirty blonde hair and olive skin approaches her.

"Just to say," the girls says, and Six notes what she's wearing subconsciously; knitted pink beret, dark green coat, fingerless black gloves, dark boots, jeans and a purple shirt. Seems she has the same odd sense of style as Madeira. "I think what you did to Mark on your first day was really cool. Grabbing his arm when he tried to squeeze your butt? Like, I have never seen such girl power."

Six just nods awkwardly. "Thanks."

She doesn't know how to deal with praise. Never has. Katarina has only ever congratulated her when it's something _very_ good – Six is more used to constructive criticism. She knows how to react to that – to work on it, and keep working until she gets whatever it is right.

"Oh, Maren," she hears Madeira say from behind her. The springy girl pops out and stands beside the blonde girl, taking her hand. "I see you've met my girlfriend. This is Angie. Angie, this is Maren. She's the awesome new girl I was talking about."

Angie grins, all white teeth showing, and it looks eerily similar to the way Madeira smiles.

"Nice to meet you, Maren," she greets, just as she spots someone behind Six. "Oh. Hey Sam."

Six whirls around to be faced with Sam Goode himself, all skinny frame with thick glasses that look out of place on his pale face.

"Um, hi Angie," he mumbles, sounding awkward. "I, uh, I was wondering if I could take to Maren. Alone." He looks nervous, and Six can't help but empathise with him. She knows what it's like to be the outsider, and even more so to suddenly have people be friendly with you.

Six leads him to the side of the corridor, out the way of the stream of people, and he grins weakly at her. Whenever someone tries to get close and maybe listen in on their conversation, she makes sure to shoot glares at them, ensuring that the discussion stays _private_.

"I don't get it," Sam says, almost to himself. "Angie's never spoken to me before. I never thought she even knew that I existed."

Six shrugs.

"Apparently she does," she comments, and Sam cracks a smile.

"It's nice," he says, again as though talking to the air. "To be noticed, I mean. Usually if someone _does_ notice me, it's just to pick on me."

"I noticed you," Six points out, making Sam grin happily.

"You did." Then, almost straight away, he looks flushed and embarrassed and awkward again. "That's, um, that's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about." Six waits for a couple seconds as he looks nervous and shifts on his feet a bit.

The bell goes at that moment, and Sam's head jerks up like a startled rabbit.

"Um, I've gotta go," he says hurriedly, rushing off. Six stares at him, then realising that she herself has somewhere to be.

"Hey Maren," a voice says beside her, and Six looks to her right to see Sarah standing there with a wide smile. "What have you got next?"

"I have no idea," she admits honestly. Sarah just nods, almost as though she was expecting it.

"Check your timetable," she suggests, and, much to her annoyance at not doing it sooner, Six does so. Sarah peers over with lips pursed and eyebrows raised, her bright blue eyes roaming said sheet, and when they lock on to whatever Six has next her posture straightens and her grins fully.

"You're in Home Ec. with me," she announces, doing the annoying thing where she grabs Six's arm and begins to tug her along. "I hope we get paired up. If we do, we get to work together for the rest of the year." Sarah sounds genuinely happy about that, and Six can't help but roll her eyes.

"Great," she sarcastically mutters. Sarah seems to overhear, but apparently doesn't pick up the sarcasm as she leads Six along.

Six wonders whether the rest of her time here will be spent like this.

000

Sure enough, Six and Sarah get paired together, and it's all Six can do not to groan. The blonde grins at her, and as they begin to make their food Sarah feels the need to fill Six in on all the little details of her past relationship with Mark.

Six really tries not to care, but when she hears about how Sarah was shipped off to an aunt and grew to love photography, she can't help but respect this girl. Sarah Hart has apparently gone from being a bitchy cheerleader to a kind and compassionate girl, and it's something that Six can appreciate.

Still doesn't mean that she has to like the 'girl bonding time' (to quote Sarah). She's better off not caring about people and not getting involved with human affairs, but when a girl called Freya and her twin brother Freddy Longsworth decide that they now want to be friends with her, she once again has very little choice on the matter.

"You're Maren, right?" Freya says as she encounters her by the ovens, waiting for their food to finish cooking. "It's cool to meet you. Everyone's been talking about you." Six feels an eyebrow go up.

"They have?"

Freddy nods, fluffy brown hair moving with him.

"They said that you stopped Mark James from beating up Sam Goode," he enthuses, looking excited at the prospect. "That was really cool of you. Normally no one stands up to Mark." Six frowns.

"Well maybe if more people did then I wouldn't have to," she says darkly, just as Sarah pops up with a grin and oven gloves.

"They're ready," she announces, reaching in and pulling them out from the oven. Then she notices the twins. "Oh, hey Freya. Hi Freddy."

Both siblings nod, and Six grimaces. She can't believe she's actually been forced into being _social_.

As they walk back to their place, Sarah nudges Six with her elbow as well as she can with her hands full.

"So you're quite the little hero, huh?" the blonde asks rhetorically, laughing as she does. "Must be nice. To know that people think of you that way."

Six thinks of the responsibility lying her shoulders, on _all_ the Nine's shoulders, and thinks that , no, it isn't nice at all.

000

"Madeira Harris!" a voice booms, and Six looks up to see the coach looming over said girl beside her. "Do you ever shut up?!"

"Not really," the Hispanic girl responds with, and Six raises an eyebrow. Seems Madeira's pretty confident.

The coach's nostrils flare, but he seems to know when to move on so he just scowls, going on to talk about how they're going to be running and timing their scores. A series of groans emits from the rest of the girls, but the coach just tells them to shut up and get a move on.

"It's not fair," Six hears someone comment behind her as they begin to jog around the big circle, some at different paces than others. Her gaze flickers behind her to see one of the girls Sarah sits with – Macia Blaszak, was it? – talking to Angie. "The boys get to do it much later in the year, but we have to do it _now_ for some god-unknown reason."

There is a light laugh that can only be Madeira.

"I don't know why you're complaining," the curly-haired girl announces, her footsteps speeding up. "Me, I _love_ running!"

Six tunes out to the rest of their conversation, keeping focused on jogging at a steady pace, one that is fast enough to let her stay ahead of most of the girl's but slow enough not to be suspicious.

"Hey!" a voice exclaims beside her, drawing her out of her reverie. Six looks over to see Sarah grinning widely at her, with Emily Goring and Yuna Kobayashi just a few paces in front of them. "You're pretty fast."

At Sarah's words Six slows instinctively down. The blonde girl seems to notice and huffs as best she can considering that they're running, slowing herself down to keep pace with Six. Shame. She'd been hoping for some alone time.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, you know," Sarah comments after several moments, garnering Six's attention. The smaller girl looks over to see Sarah with an odd look on her face, the shadows of a frown resting on her brow. "Being better than someone at something. I mean, don't rub it in someone's face, but you shouldn't pretend to be slow if you can be fast."

Six is momentarily stunned by the – surprisingly deep – words the other girl has come out with, but within seconds the smile is back and Sarah's back to being bubbly.

"Ah, I love running," she states, throwing her head back and letting her ponytail bob with it. Six watches, transfixed, and she isn't looking where she's going so it's technically her own fault when she crashes straight into Yuna Kobayashi .

"Ouch!" the Japanese girl exclaims as she falls to the floor, Six going down with her. She grimaces as the scrape she feels, wrinkling up her nose, though that isn't the only thing bothering her. She can't afford to be so careless on the battle field. It could get her killed one day – _will_ get her killed, if she doesn't pay more attention next time.

"Sorry," she apologises, though she's more sorry for letting her guard down than crashing into the other girl. Pulling herself onto her feet, she surveys the area. Several other girls have stopped to help and observe – among them Macia, Emily, Angie and Madeira. Sarah is standing there as, well arms folded and looking worried as she plays with her bottom lip.

"Are the two of you alright?" she asks, and Six finds it odd that the blonde seems genuinely concerned for her well-being. Or maybe she's just worried about Yuna and doesn't want to look rude by _only_ caring about Yuna.

"I'm fine," Yuna states from the floor, pulling herself up from the floor as she does so. She winces as she brushes some dirt from her legs, and Six feels kind of bad when she notices a sore spot which will almost certainly turn into a bruise. _That was my fault_, her mind seems to say.

It's all over within seconds and soon everyone is back to sprinting, but Six can't focus. Because that was the problem, she didn't _focus, _and this time it was just crashing into Yuna but what if it grows to be something worse than that? What if she's fighting, and doesn't focus and she gets herself – or, worse, one of her allies – _killed?_

They can't afford to lose another Loric, not because of her stupidity.

_She_ can't afford to be so stupid.

"Hey, Maren," Sarah says softly beside her as they jog. Her face looks gentle but her posture is rigid, like she doesn't quite know what she's supposed to be doing or saying. "It wasn't your fault, 'kay?"

When Six doesn't respond, instead keeping her gaze on the track ahead, Sarah slowly, hesitantly, reaches out to try and clasp her arm on Six's. Six jerks away as soon as she feels contact, the warmness of Sarah's arm beginning to seep into hers, and she ignores the hurt look on Sarah's face as the other girl also recoils, opening her mouth to begin to say, "I'm sorry…"

Six ignores the part of her that says she liked that touch.

Instead she journeys on, quickening her pace, and she's never been so glad for her enhanced physical abilities as she is right now.

She sprints the last lap.

000

At some point, as she's running, Six feels a tingling that isn't the ghost the Sarah's touch. It's her arm healing, already, and she allows a small, hesitant smile to crawl onto her face upon the realisation that she just developed a new legacy.

000

The next day, after Six has gone home and told Katarina about the new ability and trained rigorously to try and correct her mistake, to try and _focus_, she is tired and exhausted to the bone. When she happens to glance in the mirror, she sees large bags under her eyes and a slightly unhealthy pallor to her skin, but just sighs and splashes water on her face.

Upon arriving at the school, she immediately seeks out Yuna to apologise for yesterday, although it turns out she didn't need to. The Japanese girl seems to have forgotten all about it, much to Six's relief. Everyone does – everyone besides Sarah.

When Six spots the blonde girl, she tries her hardest to avoid her. Coward as it is, she's not sure that she can face Sarah right now, not after the way she reacted yesterday. Flinching away is an instinct that she's tried to avoid, but she can't help but remember being kidnapped by the Mogs, so many years ago – now she's grateful, because without it she may never have discovered her invisibility legacy, but that doesn't change the fact that at the time she was scared shitless and it still ranks on her top three worst experiences.

She's so focused on getting away from Sarah that she barely notices when she walks smack into Sam, who looks at her with big eyes and apprehension on his face.

"Wow, um, you okay?" he asks, looking awkward. Six just nods, fully aware of the bad state her appearance is currently in. Normally she wouldn't care, but attention is something she's always been taught to avoid and the fact that she's gaining so much is unnerving her. "You sure? You look… ill."

"I'm fine," she informs curtly, frowning at the way Sam still looks uncertain. Six grimaces. "You're right, I – I'm ill."

Sam nods, though he still doesn't look like he believes her.

"Maybe you should go home," he ventures, smiling weakly at her glare at the very notion. "I mean, if you're ill, then you're not going to get any better by being here."

000

The weekend drags on, especially considering that Six went home early on Friday. Katarina had accepted it easily, simply seeing it as an opportunity to fit some extra training in. Due to this, by Monday Six is bone-tired, and she's almost forgotten about what happened on Thursday.

Sarah has forgotten, too, it would seem, but that doesn't mean Six can look her straight in the eyes yet. The blonde greets her with a smile and a hug as though they are old friends, despite the fact that they've actually known each other for less than a month.

Six finds that she doesn't mind.

000

By some strange chain of events, discussing people's favourite flavours of ice cream at dinner lead to Sarah inviting 'Maren' out to ice cream which lead to Six sitting uncomfortably at a table as the blonde orders for the both of them.

Six tries to avoid the eyes of everyone else there, feeling so out of place as they look so _in_ place because – because Six has never done anything like this. She's never been the girl that can just casually nip to the ice cream parlour round the corner, never been that person that just lists off what flavours they want before paying over and leaving a big tip.

Being a Loric on the run has never allowed for any of that, and Six finds it odd that, while she's tried so hard to blend in almost all her life, it's now that she's at her most ordinary, when she isn't even trying. When it's almost like she's on a…date.

Six flushes slightly at even the thought, immediately mentally denying it. No, this is _not_ a date, surely – she and Sarah aren't even dating.

(_That wouldn't stop Sarah,_ some part of her mind whispers, but she chooses to ignore it.)

When Sarah finally comes over with the ice creams, with a wide smile and pleasantries, Six smiles slowly, hesitantly back, and the two speak as though Six is a normal person, and Six finds that she rather likes it.

Six finds that she also rather likes Sarah.

And that could be a problem in the long run.

000

Somehow, life in Paradise High becomes normal. Six goes to her lessons, mostly with Sarah. She learns that Madeira's girlfriend's full name is Angie Jacobs, and they've been going strong and steady for almost a year now. Mark James learns to leave her alone, him and his little 'gang'. She finds Sam Goode to be a nice guy – a good companion, smart but not obnoxiously so.

Her and Katarina decide to sit out of the Halloween Parade. No doubt Mark James will be there, making a big spectacle of himself, and that's something Six would rather not be involved with. Plus, in the dark and surrounded by people – it would be all too easy for a Mog to sneak in and stab a knife through the back whilst no one was watching.

(She may be Number Six, and the charm may still be in effect, but that doesn't mean that she needs any unwanted attention.

That would mean that they'd have to move again, and that's the last thing they need.)

Yuna seems to have moved on from that little incident in PE, and next thing Six knows the Japanese girl is regularly pairing up with her in said lesson. The two turn out to be the fastest in the class, so Six somehow often finds herself running alongside her and chatting… well, listening as Yuna chats, as she soon discovers.

Madeira seems to be inserting herself more and more into Six's life. Whether it be randomly jumping on her back when she arrives at school or unexpectedly taking a single Home Ec. class just to be with her, apparently, Six finds herself with a new best friend wiggled into her life. Even worse, she finds that she doesn't mind.

Well, she doesn't mind until she discovers that Macia Blaszak is having a party and would like her to come, a whole month after her arrival.

"Maren, honey," she says when Six questions her on it, the edges of Macia's lips twitching up into what could be either a smile or a smirk (and there is, no matter what anyone else says, a major difference). "I don't know if you've noticed, but you're the most popular girl in the school now. _Of course_ I want you to come." Six blinks, because she'd noticed random people that she doesn't even know coming and talking to her or sitting next to her, but she's never exactly been socially observant.

"I'm not exactly a social butterfly," she states, frowning when Macia just throws her head back and laughs.

"Oh, we've noticed," Yuna chimes in from next to her, clutching a handful of envelopes to give out herself. "You don't even try, you're just yourself, and people love you for it."

"Now," Macia states, finally handing Six's envelope towards her, grinning at the smaller girl's blank expression. "Madeira's your best friend, right?" Six nods, leaving out the 'not by choice' part. Somehow, she's grown to actually _like_ the Hispanic girl. "Well, she'll be there, but odds are she'll just spend the whole night snogging Angie." Macia winks and Six blinks. "Anyway, I'll be there, duh, and so will Yuna and Binta and everyone. And so will Sarah! You're dating Sarah, right?"

"Right," Six agrees on instinct. Then, "wait, what?"

"So, Sarah will be there, and you can pull a Madeira and spend the night in a corner with her somewhere - "

"But we're not – I'm not… Me and Sarah aren't dating!" Six splutters, and Macia's grin turns slightly evil.

"Wow," Yuna comments, squinting jokingly. "Is Maren flustered? I can swear Maren's flustered."

"But Maren doesn't _get_ flustered!" Macia teases, going along with it. Then she pauses and that devious grin turns into a straight-up smirk. "Unless, of course, it's about _Sarah_."

"Wow," Yuna states, awe in her voice. "I have _never_ seen Maren flustered so much!"

"I've never seen her flustered _at all_," a voice comments by them – Freya, accepting her own invitation. She grins, an odd glint in her eyes. "What's gotten you so worked up?"

"Sarah," Macia states simply, and Freya joins them with the evil grinning.

"Ah," she says, crossing her arms. "_Sarah_, huh? So _that's_ who Maren likes."

"I don't like her!" she snaps, just as she hears the sound of a throat clearing behind her.

Sarah herself is standing awkwardly, smiling a little with one hand raised in a small wave.

"Hey guys," she greets, eyeing the invitations. "You've convinced Maren to come, right?"

Yuna nods, hair bobbing up and down with her.

"Oh yeah," she drawls, continuing even with the glare Six shoots her at her next statement. "She agreed straight away when she heard that you'd be there."

Six feels the need to facepalm, especially with the added giggles of Freya and Macia. But if Sarah catches on to their discussion then she doesn't let it show. Instead, she smiles with… relief, apparently.

"Oh, thank god," she comments, brushing some hair out of her face. Six watches her hand, wondering why it transfixes her so much. "I was worried you wouldn't come and I'd be all on my lonesome."

Six hears some gasps from behind her, mocking ones. She rolls her eyes on instinct, just _knowing_ that it's Madeira.

And, sure enough, it's the voice of her best friend speaking up.

"Sarah, how could you say that? _We'll_ be there!"

"_You'll _be eating Angie's face off all night!"

"Well, she is tasty."

"Oh, hold on – Binta! I've got your invite here!"

And as her friends turn to friendly banter and laughter, Six finds that she rather likes having friends.

000

Randomly, while Six is jogging alongside Yuna in PE, Sarah ends up jogging beside them, smiling with a small little wave as a way of greeting.

"Howdy," she states happily, blonde ponytail bobbing up and down. It takes Six's full concentration not to focus on that like last time, instead purposefully averting her hazel eyes on the track ahead. "How're y'all doin'?" Sarah drawls, and Six thinks on some strange level that a southern accent suits her.

"Fine, Sarah," Yuna answers, looking amused. At the same time, Six asks blandly, "What's with the cowboy roleplay?"

Sarah tips her head, looking bubbly.

"My aunt bought me a cowgirl hat, for apparently no reason," she exclaims happily with a little laugh, doing a small skip in her jog. "It's gotten me in the mood, shall we say." She winks and Yuna laughs. Six only allows the corners of her lips to turn up ever so slightly.

"I think I'll leave the two of you alone," Yuna proclaims, slowing her pace. Six watches as she takes up a spot besides Macia, the two immediately striking up conversation on something or other, before her gaze shifts back to the staring Sarah.

"You know," Sarah muses. "You look really serious when you're running. Like if you stop then you'll die or something." Six chooses not to flinch or bother answering the unspoken question of _why_ hanging in the air, instead continuing to focus on the track ahead. In the corner of her eye she sees Six looking sad, almost as though she's proving whatever Sarah said. "See, you're doing it now. Barely even noticing, just looking ahead."

Six scowls, knowing that Sarah is right and hating it.

There is silence for a few minutes, then Six decides to speak up – to offer to Sarah at least _some_ of her past to her. The blonde has been such a good friend in these past few months, human or not, and Six doesn't like owing people.

"When I was younger I was kidnapped," she says, ignoring the sharp intake of breath coming from Sarah's general direction. Six quickens her pace slightly, confident in Sarah's ability to keep up, for fear of Yuna and Macia and god knows who else overhearing from behind them. She knows that Freya for certain would have let the whole school know by the end of the day, if she happened to overhear. "Me and Kata – my mum both. We were held for several months before I managed to escape, and got the police in on it." That last part was a lie, but Six at least has to make it sound believable.

"Maren…" Sarah says breathlessly, voice quiet, but Six hates the pity in her voice and she's not done yet.

"Those months of captivity were awful," she comments, not daring to meet Sarah's eyes. She would probably shut her own, but she can't look away from the track, from the path ahead – not now, not ever. "I'm not too proud to admit that I didn't come out unscathed." She grimaces at the thought of some of the scars she still holds. "And, the whole time I was there, I could only think about the fact that they caught me with my guard down. I hadn't been concentrating.

"There must have been earlier opportunities for me to escape, but I just didn't notice them. And for most of the time we were there…" Her voice cracks and she takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly as she can whilst still jogging. Her eyes haven't moved from the track ahead. When she continues her voice sounds light and far away, so unlike what she's used to, the hard and sharp tone. "All the time we were there, they were torturing my mum. And I couldn't do _anything_ to stop them." Her voice shakes slightly and she internally curses herself for the noticeable wobble.

"When I hit Yuna, it was because I wasn't concentrating." Six whispers the last part, although it can be heard loud and clear in the silence Sarah is providing. "And I knew that it was just another person that got hurt because I couldn't focus."

Sarah is silent as she jogs beside her. Six's fists clench, but she's glad for the quiet. It's odd, but she feels as though a great weight has been lifted off of her chest. Her heart, her whole body feels lighter and more open, and it isn't because of the running.

"…I don't know what to say," Sarah finally says, breaking the silence, and a grim smile comes to Six's face, twisting her nose in an odd way.

"You don't have to say anything," she states, and she realises that it's the truth. "You just… you just had to listen. And you did." And, for the first time, Six takes her eyes fully off the track to look at Sarah, with a great deep understanding on her face. "Thank you," she says honestly, and Sarah smiles – sadly but gently, and Six appreciates it.

Sarah takes her hand and squeezes lightly, a gesture of comfort, of companionship, and Six is slightly exhilarated to find that once Sarah's hand has left hers, she misses the warmth.

000

A couple days later Sarah isn't in, so for Home Ec. Six is paired off with Binta William-Aguda. Truth to be told, she's only spoken to the black girl twice, and both times it's not been about either of them or their personal lives – just things in general, things with no relation to them.

"I know you aren't from Chicago," Binta mentions _way_ too casually as they're making cupcakes. Six hums in disinterest, before the words take hold and her head snaps up.

"_What?_" Her tone is sharp, low and bordering on dangerous. Binta just shoots her an amused look and continues to mix the batter.

"I said," she repeats calmly and slowly, almost as though talking to a child. It irritates Six, but not so much so that it overwhelms her fear at Binta's last statement. "I know you're not from Chicago." She pauses for a second to scrape some batter that's stuck on the spoon, before continuing to stir. "You're from Lorien."

Six just stares at her, mouth opening and closing soundlessly like a gaping fish. But still, Binta continues.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anybody," Binta states carelessly, as though it's not Six's true identity and life they're discussing here. Binta pauses and smirks. "Six."

"Wha – how did you…?" Six trails off at Binta's nonchalant look and wave of the hand.

"I'm psychic, it's not a big deal," the African girl comments, beginning to pour the battery-gloop into the little cake cups. "Passed down from my mum."

Six feels faint, and she doesn't know what to do _at all_, because none of her training covered this, so instead she just asks if perhaps she could meet Binta's mum.

Much to her surprise, Binta agrees.

000

Binta's mother turns out to be a woman named Jamila Aguda, an African woman in her late forties. She's very welcoming towards both Six and Katarina, who Six has explained the situation to and is worried enough to come along, for Six's 'protection'.

"Binta, would you make some tea for us, please?" Jamila requests of her daughter, who nods and leaves almost immediately. It's a badly concealed encouragement to leave, but luckily Binta doesn't seem to take offense at all.

Jamila smiles warmly at the both of them, but Katarina has trained her to be paranoid and her Cepan is equally so, and the smile is left unreturned.

"I must say," Jamila begins, crossing her legs from where she sits on the couch. "When I heard of the attack on Lorien, I was very disturbed. The news that the planet's revival had been left in the hands of mere _children_ worried me even more." The smile comes back, and Jamila uncrosses her legs. It's getting to be a bit annoying, this habit of hers.

"And what do you think now?" Katarina blatantly asks, muscles tense and eyes sharp. "You've met Six, so now what do you think?"

Jamila's smile is still there – but softer now, more genuine.

"I think," she says carefully, the words measured and patient. "That I had no cause to worry. If Number Six – and yourself – are any indication, then the Loric chosen are more than capable, with level heads on their shoulders." The smile finally slips off her face and she lets her weariness and fatigue show, and it occurs to Six that it's Jamila's planet at stake, too, if they fail. "Though I suppose that wasn't enough for the first three."

Several moments of awkward silence pass before Binta returns and interrupts with a tray, holding three cups of tea and a plate of biscuits. Jamila accepts hers with an easy smile and casual accepting sip of her drink. Binta takes a seat by Six, and when both Six and Katarina's cups remain untouched she points.

"Are you going to drink that?" she asks bluntly, and at Six's distrusting shake of the head, Binta shrugs, reaches out and begins to down it herself. Jamila sighs and shakes her head in exasperation, but places her own cup down.

"Miss Katar," Jamila begins, and Six watches Katarina's flinch at being called her (presumably) real name. Jamila pauses. "If I am allowed to call you that?" At Katarina's hesitant nod, she continues. "Miss Katar, would it surprise you to know that not a single person in this room is fully human?"

Katarina still looks shocked and slightly disturbed, but she's strong, and she gives her answer firmly.

"It's looking that way, yes," she replies quietly, still not leaning forward for a sip of her drink or a biscuit. She hesitates before carrying on. "If you don't mind me asking… just how human are you?"

Binta looks up from her drink.

"Should I leave?"

Jamila looks slightly nervous about it, but slowly shakes her head at her daughter's question.

"No, no you can stay, Binta." She gives the younger black girl a smile, a hesitant one, but still one that fits nicely on her face. "This is your heritage, too, and I've been wrong to keep so much of it from you for so long." Binta nods and looks calm on the inside, but both in her eyes and in the relaxation of her shoulders Six can see her relief.

"So," Jamila clears her throat, shifting a little and re-folding her legs. Six frowns at the movement. It certainly _is_ getting to be annoying. "I suppose the story starts with my own parents. Both were Loric, as perhaps you have guessed, and they came to Earth in order to both study and advance the culture in Bhisho, the Eastern Cape of South Africa. It was there that I was born and raised.

"A couple months after my tenth birthday," Jamila continues. "I began to display signs of legacies – like my mother before me and my daughter after me, I began to use my psychic abilities from a very young age, in Loric terms at least. I suppose I developed quickly, compared to other Loric – I got my telekinesis within a week, and further gained more legacies such as flight and even elemental manipulation, as I believe that you, Six, also have. It cause me quite a few problems growing up, but now I am in full control of my abilities.

"A vision that I shared with my mother showed that one day Lorien would come under attack from a foreign but still known race. My parents travelled back in order to warn the people. Worried for my safety, they left me behind when I was twelve, in the care of a human family that were kind enough to take me in.

"As you know, there was eventually a restriction on Loric going to or settling down on Earth. I heard about this – however, I was stranded on Earth. I had to train myself to control my abilities, and luckily I did.

"I eventually moved to America where I met my husband Gary William, with who I had my two children – Binta and her younger brother Ayo. Gary, I am certain is human. Therefore, my children are both half human, half Loric. Binta has developed my psychic abilities – however, she has displayed no other legacies. I believe this to be the extent of her powers.

"Ayo has not yet shown any concrete evidence, but there has been some circumstantial things, enough so for me to believe that he has also developed this. But I want you to understand something." Jamila stops to let the weight of next words sink in, looking Six and Katarina in the eyes individually. "I do not want you to involve me or my children in this war in any way. I know that the fight cannot be avoided – in all honesty, I wouldn't mind fighting myself. But I am a Loric, and I have abilities that will help me to defend myself.

"Please – don't get my children caught up in this. Six, you can be Binta's friend, but in the name of Lorien, _do not make her fight_."

The tension in the air is thick – it could be cut with a knife. Six's eyes flicker about, taking in the facial expressions of the other three females. Then,

"And what if I want to fight?"

Six looks to her side to see Binta sitting straight and serious, with a kind of determined strength in her eyes that Six can respect. When she looks back, Jamila is sitting the same, with a mirroring expression.

"I won't let you," is her simple answer.

"But what if I do?" Binta presses, and Six can't help but let a wry smile come to her face at how very _Loric_ the girl seems at this moment.

Jamila has no trace of a smile now – she is stern and serious, even while she takes the last sip of her tea.

"Then I will have to stop you."

And Six doesn't doubt for a second that she will.

000

In the following weeks, Six finds herself growing closer to Binta. Sarah is back, for which she is grateful. Oddly enough, she found that on Sarah's day off, Six… missed her. (_Not_ that she'd ever admit it.)

Binta introduces her to Ayo, her eight-year-old brother, and Six isn't the soft sort but she can honestly say that the little kid is one of the cutest people she has ever met. Occasionally creepy and displaying the beginnings of being psychic, yes, but still _adorable_. (Again, not that she'd ever admit it.)

She's growing closer to Sarah, too – horrifically closer. Somehow, Six is finding herself looking forward to seeing Sarah smile, to having Sarah's skin brush against hers, to even _speaking_ to Sarah… She doesn't know what this is and she doesn't like it, but at the same time she really, _really_ does.

Madeira is still annoyingly friendly. Her one-year-anniversary with Angie comes around two weeks after Six's little visit to Binta's house, and Madeira spends the whole day grinning her face off like crazy. Six makes the mistake of asking what's gotten her so cheerful – and promptly has her ear talked off by her best friend.

"We're going to Angie's tonight!" Madeira declares happily, grinning with her teeth on full display. Six lets a small smile come on to her face, half from genuine pleasure at how happy her friend is and the other half worried that if she doesn't then Madeira will grab her cheeks and stretch her mouth for her (as she has done before). "Angie's place is great! So much better than mine, it's unbelievable!"

"What's so bad about yours?" Six asks, just to move the topic on. She doesn't expect Madeira's face to fall slightly, for the Hispanic girl to lose her smile. The grin itself is so constant that Madeira looks like a stranger without it – hollow, distant, empty.

"Nothing's bad about mine," she says quietly and innocently, all wide-eyed, but Six is a liar for a living and she _knows_ how to spot another one.

The bell goes and Madeira looks grateful, rushing off. Six watches her go, eyes narrowed.

000

"I see you've grown closer with Binta," Sarah comments in their next Home Ec. as she chops up carrots. The sudden declaration is almost enough to make Six cop her fingers as she cuts up a potato, and she internally curses at how careless she's being. Despite herself, she lets her walls down and she smiles.

"What, you jealous?" she teases lightly, and oddly finds that she enjoys it. Teasing people is never something that she's ever done, never been something that Katarina has encouraged – Six's life has always been about the mission, nothing more, but coming to Paradise and making 'friends' has shown her that there's more to her life than the goals that have been drilled into her for years now.

Sarah laughs happily.

"Nah, I'm just glad you've made friends," she informs, and Six doesn't doubt her honesty for a second. It's a far cry from when she arrived here, suspicious of everyone and everything. "You and Binta have always seemed, well, _closed-off_, no offense – it's quite odd, when you think of how social Binta's mum is."

"Jamila's _very_ social," Six agrees on instinct, starting on the potatoes. She barely even notices Sarah's wide-eyed look. "It takes a while to meet her because she's always so busy…" She waves a hand in a very Madeira-like gesture, and it occurs to her that the Hispanic girl has probably been wearing off on her. "Doing things."

"Oh, so you met Jamila, huh?" Sarah asks rhetorically, and Six frowns at the unreadable tone in her voice. "And you're already on first name terms with her. Wow, you and Binta must be getting close. She hardly lets anyone meet her mum. I think the list is, oh – me, Angie, Macia, I think? And now you."

"Angie?" Six asks, in slight surprise. Despite Madeira somehow now being her best friend and Angie being Madeira's girlfriend, she's just never really gotten round to getting to know the other blonde.

Sarah nods, ponytail bobbing up and down with her, much in the way it does in PE.

"She and Binta actually used to be pretty close," she informs, sounding kind of sad as she speaks her next words. "Then Angie and Madeira got together and she and Binta just kind of… drifted apart. It was a shame, really, but now I see that I have no cause to worry." Sarah smiles at Six, and the Loric's heart flutters. "Binta's found an equally as good friend in you."

Six smiles slightly, but somehow, some part of her heart tells her that she's going to end up fixing this.

000

"I was serious, you know," Binta tells her eventually, when they're walking down a corridor together. "About wanting to fight."

Six nods, because she believes Binta and has no reason to doubt the half-human, half-Loric.

"I know you were," she tells the black girl, tying her hair up into a ponytail as she does so. "And still are, I'd bet."

Binta nods.

"You won't stop me?" she asks quietly, almost afraid that Six's answer will be yes.

"…No," she says after a few moments of hesitation, and she finds it odd that she feels so good about herself for making Binta William-Aguda smile.

000

When the day of Macia's party rolls around, the school is abuzz with activity. Paradise is a small community, and Paradise _High_ is even smaller, so whether someone's been invited to Macia's party or not, Six has no doubt that everyone will find their way there tonight.

Except for Binta, apparently.

"Why can't you come?!" Macia exclaims at the dinner table, looking genuinely upset. "You're one of my best friends, you have to be there!"

Binta shrugs and a small smile comes onto her face. She's seemed happier lately, more open, ever since her mother talked to her properly about her past. Six is glad for it. When she'd talked to Binta before, the black girl had always seemed closed off, no doubt pulled into the group by Sarah much in the same way that Six was.

"I have to pick up my little brother from his friend's party," she explains, taking a bite of her salad. "It's ages away, and after that my mum wants me to check into a motel. Doesn't want me driving so early in the morning to pick him up. Ayo's going to a sleepover," she adds, almost as a second thought.

"Maren, you're still coming, right?" Yuna asks, turning to the smaller girl and shooting a smile that seems slightly forceful, almost as though to say "you'd better be". Maren nods, right as Sarah laughs and grabs her arm.

"Of course she is!" Sarah exclaims, winking at Six. The Loric girl blinks. "You can be my lifeline."

"I think I'm going to try and spend the night with Sam Goode," Emily announces, twirling some pasta round in her fork. Six frowns, thinking of the skinny blonde, who she's not spoken to lately. She feels a bit bad, but Katarina's been stepping up on her training so she hasn't really had enough time. Plus, Jamila Aguda has been helping to control her elemental manipulation and telekinesis, much to her pleasure – it's better to have a teacher who has experienced the same thing herself. "Try to get him to open up more."

"He's always so closed off," Sarah chips in, frowning slightly. Six wishes she'd smile – it looks better on her. "I should probably make him sit with us. Do wonders for his social life."

Yuna laughs.

"That's really a thing for you, isn't it?" she asks, cocking her head with eyes twinkling. "If someone's all lonely, then you kidnap them and force them to join your little group."

Sarah shrugs, still smiling.

"Let's just say I've been there," she says brightly.

000

"When I got here, I was the weird Polish girl," Macia explains to Six as the two walk back to the former's house. Katarina was fine with Six going, as long as she helped to set it up. Something to do with "making sure these people owe her something". Six is helping just because she wants to. "No friends, barely spoke English… It seemed like it was just me and my imagination, against the world.

"Then came Sarah," Macia states, smiling and laughing at even the memory. "She didn't care that I was foreign, or that I was a weird little kid even back home, always imagining things. She got me to be less shy, made me sit with her, even learnt some Polish to help me learn English. She was great. I don't know if I could have done it if it wasn't for her.

"Binta's lived here her entire life, but she was home-schooled for most of it. When she came here she didn't really know how to… make friends, shall we say. She didn't have a filter, she was rough and intimidating, and, I'll admit, if it weren't for Sarah then I wouldn't have even gone _near_ her. But that's the thing about Sarah Hart – she _tries_. And she's determined enough to succeed.

"Yuna came to this country and, like me, found it hard to adjust. She was used to a different set of norms, didn't know what was 'cool' here, had trouble fitting in. Sarah just grabbed her hand and tugged her along.

"Emily was… in a bad place when we met her. Depression. She moved here when bullying and stuff got pretty bad at her old school, and she came here expecting the same kind of isolation. What she got instead was _Sarah_, of course, bouncy and lovely and…

"When are you planning on asking her out, anyway?"

Six blanches at the last question, the sudden change in topic, turning to Macia with a look of shock on her face. The Polish girl just grins slightly evilly, a glint in her eye that Six can't read.

"What, you think that no one can tell? I've seen the way you look at her. Yuna has, too. And Angie said that Madeira used to look at her the way you look at Sarah, before they got together. And Sarah likes you, too. Trust me." Macia winks, smile teasing but genuine. "I know these things."

Six thinks that Macia almost sounds like Binta in this moment, but next thing she knows they're at the house.

And she decides to ask Sarah out tonight.

000

At some point during the party Six has lost sight of Macia, and Yuna's off snogging some dude in a corner – Cliff Hillsborough. Apparently his brother Tommy helps out during Halloween on some hayride thing and Yuna met Cliff through him, when Tommy set the two of them up. Six doesn't really care, but she finds it cute anyhow.

"Her parents are in Poland for the week," Madeira tells her as the Hispanic girl pops up randomly next to her. A couple months ago it used to startle Six, but now she's actually grown used to it. She's not sure whether that's good or bad. Madeira sighs wistfully, being overly dramatic as usual. "Wish I got to go," she comments, groaning and folding her arms. "But I've never even left Paradise."

"You mentioned," Six informs dryly, smirk coming easily to her face. Before she came to Paradise she wouldn't have smiled like this – she would have huffed in irritation and probably resist the urge to punch this girl.

But this is not before she came to Paradise – this is after she came to Paradise, and she's a different person now; a better one.

Madeira sighs.

"Everyone's drunk and it's annoying," she complains, for some reason scrunching herself and her shoulders up and popping out at the end of the sentence. "I have no one to talk to. Even _Angie's_ drunk, and I don't like her drunk. She's not…" Madeira waves a hand in what's probably supposed to be a helpful explanatory gesture, but just serves to confuse Six even more. "Herself."

Six nods, because she's sure that any further conversation with Madeira on this topic will just make her completely and utterly _lost_. But she's gotten to know Madeira even since she arrived here, and has grown to know that Madeira is just confusing in general – and she wouldn't be Madeira any other way.

"You're not drunk," Six points out, and Madeira does that thing again – the thing where she goes quiet and distant, where her deep brown eyes seem to be thinking about something else entirely.

"I don't drink," she says quietly, looking so small and sad that Six just doesn't know what to say.

"Hey, Maren!" a voice calls out, and Six looks over to see none other than Sarah Hart bouncing towards her. From the alertness with which she moves, _she_ isn't drunk, either. Sarah sighs in relief when she reaches them, smiling widely. Her cheeks are flushed slightly and, oddly enough, Six finds her own cheeks flushing.

"I'll leave you two alone," Madeira announces, back to her usual cheerful self. Six frowns at how quickly she snapped. The Hispanic girl winks. "I think Maren might have something to ask you, Sarah."

Six could honestly murder Madeira for that, but as the small girl skips off (_literally_ skips. So. Weird) she finds her whole attention on Sarah Hart, who is smiling smally but genuinely, and it's a pretty smile, Six thinks. There's a reason she's been looking forward to seeing it for so long.

"Sarah,I…" Six begins, trailing off, not even sure why she's doing this. Surely Sarah won't go out with someone like her, cold and icy and way, _way_ smaller than her? She won't, Six is certain. To be honest, a few months ago she never would have thought that she'd ever got out with someone like Sarah.

"You… What?" Sarah prompts, still looking nice and perfect, even with the party thrumming around them. Both things are heating Six up and she feels oppressed, so receiving a text on her phone is a welcome distraction from the current situation.

It's from Binta. Just three words, but enough to lift her heart and make butterflies tickle the innards of her stomach even more than they already are.

_from : Binta W-A _

_she'll say yes_

Six smiles.

"Sarah Hart, will you go out with me?" she asks, and Sarah doesn't even hesitate.

"Of course," she answers, tilting her head and furrowing her brow in a playful way, as though it should have been obvious, and Six finally can't help herself – she kisses her.

It's an awkward first kiss, not really all that comfortable, to be honest. Six forgot to shut her mouth and Sarah didn't close hers either, so their teeth clack together and send shivers down Six's spine. Due to this, their spittle kind of mixes a bit, and it's a tiny bit disgusting if Six is entirely honest, and she can physically _taste_ the cider that Sarah has clearly been drinking. It's hot and sweaty in the house, and so are they, so that's a main factor as well.

Six hears cheering from around them and looks up to see a bunch of people crowded around, all whooping and cheering. She flushes, and wonders how it got to this – that she's comfortable around these people, that she _can_ flush, that she's happy in Paradise at all, and Six finds that she doesn't care.

"About time!" Emily calls out, standing next to Sam with their arms linked and hair mussed up, lips swollen, and Six grins.

It _is_ about time, she thinks.

000

"You enjoy the party?" Six asks, not out of interest but just to keep herself occupied. Sam nods, a little awkward.

"I guess," he replies, fiddling with his locker. Six leans next to the orange one next to him, watching the people trickling through the corridors and noting the occasional glance towards and whisper about her. "It's not really my type of thing. My first official party, really." He pauses, looking both sad and happy at the same time. "If I'm honest, I think I was only invited because you were."

"I'm sure that you were invited for you," she comforts, and when Sam smiles both wryly and genuinely it makes her uncomfortable and she has to go with a sudden subject change. "So you and Emily Goring, huh?" Six asks Sam, wide grin on her face. He looks nervous but confident, and it's an oxymoron in and of itself. He blushes, but speaks, and Six deeply respects him for it.

"I, uh," he begins, rubbing the back of his neck and looking sheepish, and Six notices that he has gotten rid of his glasses, something to do with confidence, probably. Six doubts he ever even needed them, but is glad for their absence. They made him look like a bug. "I've kinda liked her for a while. At the party we kinda got talking, and she kissed me. Don't know why, but…" He trails off, shrugging and blushing.

Six's smile turns genuine.

"She kissed you because she liked you," she says warmly, and it occurs to her that it's a far cry from how she acted when she arrived here. She is glad for the change. She likes the New Her a lot better than the Old Her.

"So you and Sarah Hart, huh?" he mimics her earlier statement, looking genuinely happy for her. "How did _that_ happen?"

Six smiles and laughs.

000

Mark James corners her on Monday.

"Hey, it's Maren, right?" he asks, then carries on without waiting for her reply. "I'm Mark James."

"Hello Mark." It's not a greeting – it's almost an accusation, in the way it's stated. She breathes out harshly. "Look, what do you want?"

Mark looks softer at that – kind, almost, but Six can't forget the way he's treated Sam, the way he tried to squeeze her ass on her first day, and she won't think of him as a better person just because of some look he suddenly gives.

"I wanted to… apologise," he says haltingly, giving away that he really is finding this difficult and really isn't joking. "For… well for being an asshole, I guess." He clearly tries for a smile, though it ends up coming out more as a grimace. "You, uh, you really seem to be good for Sarah – better than I ever was – and I just want you to know that, um, I won't get in the way of your relationship or anything like that. So, yeah." He rubs the back of his neck and looks monumentally awkward, but still like a huge burden has been lifted off his shoulders.

"You're not… homophobic?" Six asks hesitantly, and notes that Mark looks a bit offended at the statement and, okay, she can admit, it is a little judgemental.

"That's be a bit hypocritical, considering," he points out as though it's common knowledge, before his eyes widen a noticeable fraction. "Anyway, you, uh…" He takes a deep breath, as though saying whatever he's about to will take a great deal of courage. "You should probably go talk to Madeira Harris about her home life."

Six raises an eyebrow. _That_ wasn't what she was expecting.

"What?"

Mark sighs.

"I know that she has it rough. And, well, you're supposed to be her best friend, right? She could probably do with some help."

Six narrows her eyes as what he's implying dawns on her, and she makes a mental note to check on the absent Madeira tonight after school.

"And how exactly do you know this?" she asks, traces off a menacing threat in her voice.

"Guess it takes one to know one," he states quietly, and Six feels a little pang in her heart. "We're kind of in a similar boat, I guess."

Then he leaves before Six can get another word in, and she's left standing with a partially open mouth and a lot of unanswered questions on the tip of her tongue.

000

True to her word, Six goes round to Madeira's that night. She gets the address from Angie, who greets her with a smile and a teasing "how's Sarah?"

Six had replied that Sarah is her girlfriend now, so she _must_ be doing well, to which Angie had simply laughed.

Now Six finds herself walking towards the address Angie had given her with anticipation churning in her stomach, internally dreadfully fearing what she will find there. Could Mark be right? Could Madeira really be being… abused? It doesn't seem possible, surely not. She's talked about her older sister, wouldn't she have stopped it? Unless… Madeira said that Graciela was at university now. She wouldn't be there.

But, if Madeira is being treated that way, then how could Six have failed to notice the signs? Madeira's supposed to be her _best friend_, for Lorien's sake. Why did she need _Mark James_, of all people, to point it out to her? And what was that Mark said about being in a similar boat? Could he be… treated in that way too?

No time to ponder on it anymore, because the next thing Six knows she's standing in front of an old wooden door and knocking on it sharply.

It swings open slowly, with Madeira standing on the other side. She looks like usual, with her same frayed and customised clothes, the same dorky green baseball cap, with two major differences – the posture, deflated and so _un-Madeira_ like that Six ends up doing a double take to make sure that it's really her best friend that she's looking at.

The second big difference is Mareida's black eye.

Any doubts about Madeira's home situation go away in that second, upon Six's viewing of the shiner blooming on her best friend's face.

"Madeira," she says bluntly, not bothering with formalities or anything of the sort, not when her best friend is so obviously hurt and in trouble. "Who did that to you?"

"What, this thing?" Madeira exclaims, trying for a laugh and a casual gesture towards the black eye. It doesn't really work. "Fell over, you know me."

"Yes, I do," Six says coolly. "And I know that you aren't that careless. Someone did that to you. And _don't_ try lying to me, because I will know and it will not be pretty."

Madeira looks hesitant, but she answers truthfully, and for that Six is grateful.

"My dad," is the quiet answer, and it's enough to infuriate Six to no end.

"Is he inside now?" Six demands hotly, with a cold sort of anger bubbling just below the surface, and that feeling only increases and intensifies with Madeira's sigh and momentary lift onto her toes before she drops back down.

"Look, Maren -"

Six can't deal with this right now – she can't cope with the evasion and the secrets, and she knows that she has them too, but hers don't get her hurt on a day-to-day basis. Hers _prevent_ her from getting hurt, and Madeira's do the opposite, and it's for these reasons that Six rolls her eyes and barges past her best friend and into the house.

"Maren, wait!" Madeira calls after her, but Six doesn't wait – she just strolls right through into the main living room and is confronted by Madeira's dad drinking a glass of what she presumes as alcohol.

Six doesn't think – she punches.

"Maren!" is Madeira's yelp from behind her, and the only thing which stops her from going further. Her teeth are bared and she is seething and maybe even glaring, but she doesn't even care right now because this guy _hurt_ her _friend_, and Madeira is such a lovely girl, such a sweet kid, and this guy is worse than the Mogs for doing something like this – and – and…

"Maren," Madeira gasps, and the Hispanic girl is suddenly beside her and when did that happen? Anyway, Madeira has grabbed her arms and turned to face her, with tears welling up in those big brown eyes of hers and her fingernails are really kind of digging in now but since doesn't care because Madeira has clearly been hurt worse. "It's okay it's – _I'm_ okay, Maren, you don't have to step in or anything, I'm fine…"

"You're not fine!" Six yells in Madeira's face, and the small girl flinches and the Loric feels a bit bad about that but she just. Can't. _Deal_. With. This. "And I obviously _do_ need to step in, for exactly that reason!"

The tears are openly running down Madeira's face now, and the curly-haired girl is sniffling like crazy to keep them in and Six wonders just how much practice she has had.

"You little bitch!" a voice shouts from the floor, and suddenly Madeira's dad is rushing towards her, red-faced and swearing, and once again Six doesn't think – she thrusts her hand out and use her telekinesis to send him flying backwards.

Madeira gasps through her tears at the sight, and Six has a brief _oh, crap_ moment, but right now Madeira's safety is worth more than Six's identity, so she grabs the arm of her best friend and pulls her out of the house.

Madeira is shaking and trembling all the way to Six's house, and every so often a small whimper will escape the mouth of the small girl. Six half expects her knees to buckle and for sobs to fully wrack her body at any given moment, but much to Madeira's credit she keeps strong and keeps on walking. Six likes that about her.

What she _doesn't_ like about her is the whole _keeping secrets_ about _abuse_ thing.

When they get back Katarina isn't in, which Six is eternally grateful for. She sits Madeira on the lumpy, ratty sofa sitting in the middle of the living room, grabbing some frozen peas from the almost barrenly empty fridge, returning to see the small girl hunched in on herself on the sofa.

Madeira is still shaking slightly and when Six gently pulls her hands away from her face she sees that her lip is trembling, so she tries to take care when cleaning her up. Madeira flinches at her touch and even more so when she presses the ice-cold bag on her swollen eye, but Six does her best to get her movements slow and relaxed whilst working.

"Hold this," Six commands in what she hopes is still a soothing tone, and much to Madeira's credit she manages to take a deep breath, mostly overcoming her shaking to hold the bag in place.

Six leaves for a couple minutes to fetch some water, making sure to leave the door open and make enough noise that Madeira doesn't think she's abandoned her in any way. In the kitchen, unseen by big, brown and hurting eyes, she downs a couple glasses of water herself and leans against the kitchen counter, closing her eyes and exhaling slowly. She mentally does counting exercises, trying to slow her adrenaline levels and calm down, to keep a clear head, like she's been taught to do if in a fight. No use panicking over small things.

But this isn't a small thing, not at all, not in the slightest.

The phrases that Madeira has said run through Six's mind, things like _"That was before the __**accident**__,"_ and _"Angie's place is so much better than mine"_ and _"I don't drink"_, and Six wonders why she didn't put the puzzle pieces together before.

Once she thinks that she's sufficiently calm, she pours another class of water to take to Madeira. Back in the living room, the smaller girl takes it without a word of complaint and holds it in her other hand, sipping slowly and looking like she'd rather not but does so anyway.

Six can see her trembling through the vibrations in the water.

Six kneels carefully in front of her, not wanting to sit beside her and disturb the other girl in any way.

"Do you want me to call Angie?" she asks slowly, treading carefully, and she doesn't even have Angie's number but she's sure that she could get it from Yuna or someone, if she just asked.

Much to her surprise (and maybe not-surprise, thinking about it) Madeira shakes her head almost frantically at the suggestion, eyes wide and almost terrified.

"No!" she babbles, a little loud and forcefully, flinching away from even her own voice but still gathering the energy to carry on. "I don't want her to, to see me like this, it's not something that she should see, not something that she can know – Maren, please don't tell her!" she gasps, panicking now so badly that she spills her drink everywhere. Madeira looks guilty and tears brim in her eyes but she has a spark of fire in her eyes that Six can respect. The next sentence is spoken softly, but still with an incredibly strong and forceful edge to it that leaves Six almost in awe of this little girl with a mightily big heart. "You _can't_ tell Angie."

Six doesn't care about the fresh tears trailing down Madeira's cheeks, or the snot running steadily out of her nose and into her mouth. She doesn't care about the spilt water all over the couch, the floor and Madeira herself. She doesn't even care about the secrets, in this moment, she places her hand over Madeira's, the shaking one that dropped the glass, and stares her best friend in the eye.

(Six isn't worth the title of best friend, not after she missed all the clue's, little subtle things that her training should have made her pick up on, but she ignores the thrumming in her heart and behaves in the way she should do right now – like a good, supporting friend. She can beat herself up about it later.)

"Madeira, Angie is your girlfriend. She cares very much about you, and she is a very important part of your life." She speaks slowly, emphasising every word, hoping that it gets through on some level. "This is something that she _needs_ to know. You don't have to tell her if you don't want to, I can do that for you, though I guess that at the end of the day it is your decision and I will respect whatever you choose. Just – I think that she would feel as though this is something that she can help you through. Like you would help Angie through it if she were the one in this situation."

Hesitantly, Six squeezes Madeira's hand in the same way that Sarah did for her, all those months ago on the racing track – a gesture of support and comfort, a promise that she will be there if Madeira needs her, and the Hispanic girl smiles through her tears.

"Not right now," Madeira manages to get out, through her deep breaths managing to get some semblance of calm. "I'll – I'll tell Angie later, we can get her round here but – in a few hours, maybe. Just – just not right now."

Six nods, and she _understands_, she can respect that, because she's _been there_. She's been the girl that doesn't want anyone to see the real her if she can avoid, the girl who's desperately hurting but just as desperately doesn't want anyone to see, and Six can empathise with Madeira on a level that she's not sure every other person in the school can.

(Mark James can, apparently, and Six knows that she really has to do something about that but right now Madeira's comfort and safety is paramount, and nothing else matters.)

After a few minutes of silence, Madeira manages to ask the question that Six has almost forgotten about.

"What you did, back at the house – how is that _possible_?"

Six goes cold at the words and stiffens, and _oh, right, she used one of her Legacies back there_. And she decides that, since she now knows a truth about Madeira, it's time that Madeira knows a truth about her.

"I'm not exactly what you'd call… a _human_," she confesses slowly, trying to gather up the courage to finally, _finally_ spill everything that's been on her chest ever since she got to Paradise – screw that, ever since she got to _Earth_.

And so Madeira Harris listens with wide eyes as Number Six tells her _everything_.

000

The situation is explained to Katarina by a relieved Six, and Katarina says nothing when she tells her about Madeira knowing everything, but Six can see both the disapproval and acceptance in her eyes.

Her Cepan is kind to Madeira, though, and for that Six is grateful. Katarina takes a re-look at the bruise around her eye, being gentle, and asks Madeira if she's been hurt anywhere else, which Six feels a little guilty for not asking about. It turns out that Madeira's been hit several other times – once in the stomach, winding her, and there's a rather nasty bruise on her leg that looks like it came from a boot of some sort.

Katarina goes so far as to even helping the exhausted Hispanic into bed, tucking her in like she would her own child and being mindful of the younger girl's injuries.

Once Madeira is asleep and the door is shut Katarina leans against it, sighing heavily.

"You know, Six," she says abruptly, startling the Garde. Six looks over to see the beginnings of a grim smile tugging at the corners of her Cepan's lips. "I may not be acting like it, but I am _proud_ of what you did today." Six blinks, surprised but happy. "That, if nothing else, is a sign of how great, how strong you have already grown, and you will only get better in the future." Katarina sighs again, then says simply. "Get some sleep, Six. It's been a long day." Her eyes drift towards the door that Madeira is behind, before she begins to walk off. "For all of us."

Six smiles and nods to her Cepan's retreating back. She full intends to get some sleep, but she has some business to take care of first.

000

Six didn't tell Katarina about the whole "I used my telekinesis and Madeira's dad saw" thing, just _knowing_ that if she did, then they'd have to move again. Instead she sneaks out in the night, invisible, creeping quietly towards Madeira's house, slipping in as an uninvited guest.

Madeira's dad is sitting at the same table he was before, nursing a beer in the same position. It makes Six seethe that he could be so casual about – about all of this! He doesn't get that right, not after how he's been treating Madeira!

Six notices that he has a rather nasty purple lump on his face from where she punched him, but she can't even bring herself to feel sorry for him, nor does she want to.

She remains unseen walking all the way up to him, before purposefully reappearing in order to grab him by the neck and pin him against the wall.

"Why," she grits out between clenched teeth, and it's not a question so much as a demand for him to _talk_. He does, but about the wrong thing.

"You – you're that freak!" he exclaims, all red-faced, and he doesn't have a right to call her that, not _him_ of all people.

"No, you're the freak," she counters, making sure to dig her elbows in harder. "Now. Tell me why."

"Why what?" he tries, faking innocence, and Six gives him a grim smile and shakes her head slowly, trying to install every bit of fear she can into him.

"You _know_ why what. I'm talking about using your own _daughter_ as a piñata."

Madeira's dad gets a glint in his eye and it sickens Six.

"Because it was her fault," is his only answer, like that's supposed to settle everything in his favour. Six growls, his comment only serving to anger her further. The hell it settles _anything_.

"What was," she demands, and when she gets no further she digs her arm in further and injects more of a rough edge into her voice. "_Speak_."

"My wife," he finally gasps. "She was killed in a car accident. Madeira's fault."

"_How_."

"She was driving to pick her up from school. Crashed, got killed. If Madeira hadn't been born -"

"What?" Six hisses, digging in further and ignoring the man's pain. If it's even a _tenth_ of what he's inflicted on Madeira, then he deserves it. "You're blaming Madeira for _being born_? What kind of a sicko are you?!"

"But it was an after-school club," he proclaims, a nasty glint in his eye by now. "I didn't want Madeira to go, but she convinced us anyway."

"What, and that makes it _her fault_?" her voice is rising in pitch now, but she's so _angry_ that she doesn't care. "_That's_ your dumb excuse for beating your daughter up on a regular basis? You're one _nasty_ piece of work, you know that, right?"

"But she didn't blame herself!" Madeira's dad explodes, and he's just as angry as her right now, pushing and clawing to get out of her grasp, but Six has Loric strength on her side, and he definitely doesn't. "She had the – the _audacity_ to _look me in the eye_ and _tell me_ that it was 'an accident, nothing more', and she doesn't even feel _guilty_ about it!"

"Sounds to me like Madeira's got the right outlook on life," Six snarls. "Unlike _you_."

Then she tosses him carelessly to the ground, not even _caring_ where he lands because he is scum, because he is _below_ scum and doesn't even deserve this personal visit from her.

"You are a pathetic excuse for a human being," she spits at him, grinning evilly when he looks up with pure terror written over every inch of his face. "And if you even go _near_ Madeira again, if you try to get custody of her or try to hurt her or speak to her or _anything_?! Then I will kill you." She pauses to let that sink in, then.

"You're bluffing."

Six cocks an eyebrow.

"Am I?" She spreads her arms, letting him survey her fully. "You've seen what I can do."

"Yes, I have!" He latches onto that last strand, desperately trying to save himself. Six wants to spit on him for even _attempting_ the pitiful effort. Pathetic. "And I'll go to the police and I'll tell them _everything _that I saw!"

"No, you won't. You know why not?" She doesn't even give him a chance to answer before carrying on. "Because they won't believe you. Just look at your table. What do you see? Alcohol. They'll think that you were drunk." She grins maliciously, loving the absolute _power_ that she has over this man. "So you will listen to me, and you will listen _carefully_.

"Don't. Touch. _Madeira._"

Then she walks out into the dead of night, invisible, and tries to quench the angry, fiery inferno blazing away in her heart.

000

When Six gets back, Katarina is awake, sitting at the kitchen table as Six tries to slip through the door. She may not want to have this conversation, but Katarina is her Cepan and she refuses to betray her by simply ignoring her presence.

Instead, Six turns visible and sits down beside Katarina, folding her legs in a very Jamila-like way.

"We should move," Katarina states into the still atmosphere, shoulders tense and but eyes unmoving from where they're looking at the table. "We've stayed here for too long, anyway."

"We're _not_ moving," Six tells her – she's still angry, it's still blazing away inside of her, and she can see where Katarina is coming from but she refuses to give up her _friends_, her new _family_ – she refuses to give up Sarah.

Katarina just nods, looking tired and exhausted despite her warrior persona.

"I said that we _should_ move," she clarifies, and Six grins slightly despite herself. She can see where this is going, she knows Katarina too well. "Not that we _will_ move." Katarina sighs, bone-tired and weary but still so very fierce and strong. "You've made a life for yourself here. You fit in. If anyone comes sniffing around, you won't be the weird loner – you'll be just another student, practically invisible in terms of standing out, which is what the Mogs will be looking for."

"What about Madeira?" Six asks, because her heart is still thrumming and _she has to know_.

Katarina sighs again, but this time she manages to muster a smile onto her face.

"I suppose it could work out for the best that she knows," Six's Cepan muses, finally moving her gaze to look out of the window. "It certainly wouldn't be avoidable, with her living here now."

As soon as those words register, Six smiles – _truly_ smiles, for the first time that evening.

000

"What about my dad?" Madeira asks quietly, the next morning. "I'm going back to him, right?"

Six is happy to shake her head and smile slightly, hoping that the anger and violent satisfaction of last night doesn't show through.

"You'll never have to go back to him again," she promises. "You can live here now."

She can see the conflict behind Madeira's eyes – one half worried, one half relieved.

"But he's not like that all the time," Madeira informs, helping herself to Six's untouched piece of toast. Six herself resists the urge to smirk. Same old Madeira, still after everything that's happened. "Only… only some of the time. And it's worth being there for when he isn't drunk."

"No," Six tells her, whole-heartedly believing what she's about to say next. "No, your dad isn't worth it at all."

Madeira looks hesitant, but she smiles.

"So," the Hispanic girl says abruptly, sitting up suddenly straight and beginning to swing her legs back and forth. "Last night, you said you had some special powers, right?" Big brown eyes turn to Maren, curious, and Six can't help but grin a little at the sudden subject change. Madeira has adjusted to the knowledge that she's from outer space rather well.

"You want a demonstration, right?"

At Madeira's nod, she sighs but stands up.

"Alright," Six says, gesturing to leave with her. "Follow me."

000

Six has spent several days showing all her powers off to Madeira, who has taken it all in with wide eyes and a big smile. It's taken a great weight off her chest, confiding in someone, having someone _know_, but all too soon the weekend is over and it's back to school for the both of them.

Belatedly, she realises that they forgot to call Angie, but as the walk in she sees Madeira run off to the taller blonde and say something looking serious before the two go off to somewhere private, so she's confident in the knowledge that Angie now knows about the whole 'Madeira is living with 'Maren'' thing. She's made Madeira promise not to tell anyone about the ''Maren' is an alien' thing, and no matter how hyper the Hispanic girl can get Six trusts her to keep her gob firmly shut.

000

"So you saved Madeira, huh?" Binta asks when the two are alone outside, the black girl looking satisfied, and Six can almost swear that she can see the corners of her mouth curling up slightly. "Good. I'm glad."

"Did you know?" Six asks because _she_ has to, she has to know whether Binta knew but left her all alone to fend for herself. She is relieved to see the taller girl shaking her head.

"I had slight suspicions," she confirms, looking guilty as she does so. "But for some reason, my vision has always blocked me on that front." She shrugs. "I don't know why."

Six nods, because she had the clues, too, but she didn't do anything about them either, not until Mark James talked to her.

Speaking of Mark…

"What about Mark James?" she abruptly asks, flashing back to their conversation on Friday. "Do you ever get visions about him?"

Binta frowns and shakes her head.

"Never," she says honestly, looking a little surprised that Six would ask. "But if you want to know something about Mark, then I'd suggest going to Sarah about it. Sarah's supposed to be your girlfriend, right? Then spend time with her. Ask about Mark, if you want."

Six nods, because Binta is right – she _hasn't_ spent time with Sarah since the party, since she's been so caught up with Madeira and her powers and…

Some information that Sarah gave to her so long ago fronts to fore part of her mind.

"Sarah said that you and Angie used to be friends," Six informs casually, ignoring Binta's head snapping to turn to her with wide dark eyes. "But that you drifted apart." She looks over to the half-Loric, trying for a small smile. "You should talk to her. Make friends again."

Binta is the one to turn away know, exhaling slowly and looking out at the courtyard.

"…I used to resent Madeira," she admits into the silence, looking sad and resigned as she does so. "Angie was _my_ friend, my closest friend, my best friend. Then suddenly Madeira swept in and it was like she just… swept her away. Like Angie went off and forgot all about me. Like I'd only ever been 'just good enough', and meeting Madeira had let her see how much better she could do.

"When I found out on Friday about Madeira, when my vision finally broke the barriers and let me through… I couldn't help but feel guilty. Here I was, envying Madeira because she was took my best friend away, and yet… Madeira had it so bad. I have it much better than her, considering."

Six puts her hand on Binta's arm, smiling slightly when the other girl turns to look at.

"Talk to Angie," she repeats, and then adds on another thought. "And talk to Madeira, too. Get to know the both of them, properly. I'm sure they'd be _more_ than happy to get to know _you_."

Binta looks hesitant, but she nods and smiles slightly.

"I'll… do that. Thank you, Maren."

Six nods and smiles, and wonders how it's gotten to the point that's everyone's counsellor and confider.

000

Taking Binta's suggestion, Six talks to Sarah about Mark, but the blonde is having none of it.

"I don't want to talk about Mark!" Sarah declares, looking happy even as she does so. Six breathes out harshly, but this is Sarah and she can't stay frustrated at Sarah with that smile for the life of her. "I want to talk about you! About me! About _us_!"

Six _doesn't_, but Sarah's wide grin and bright blue eyes are enough to change her mind.

"Alright," she says, laughing. "What about us?"

"My parents want to meet you," Sarah announces, making Six blink.

"You… told them about me?"

Sarah frowns lightly, and Six wants her to smile again. She looks prettier like that.

"Of course I did. Why wouldn't I?"

Six shrugs.

"I dunno. When do they want to meet me?"

"Can you do Saturday?"

"Saturday sounds good to me."

Sarah smiles again, eyes twinkling, and Six's heart flutters in her chest.

"It's a date."

000

At Sarah's house Six is happily welcomed by her family – perhaps a little too welcomed. When all the questions and chatting and food gets to be too much for her, she politely excuses herself to wander outside and look up at the night's sky. Sarah follows.

"It's a little overwhelming, huh?" the blonde asks, folding her arms in the slightly chilly air as she strolls over to stand by Six. Sarah's blue eyes manage to meet Six's hazel ones, and the taller girl smiles. "You look beautiful," she tells her honestly, and Six can't help but let a small flush come onto her face. She's known Sarah for about half a year now, and she still finds it hard to accept all the compliments from the blonde.

"Your family are… nice," she tries, looking for the right word to describe them. She half expects Sarah to get offended over her tone, but her girlfriend just laughs.

"They like you," Sarah informs, cocking her head slightly. "If they didn't, you'd know about it."

It's enough to make Six smile, grateful for both Sarah and her family's support.

000

A couple days later, Sam is pale and shaking when he comes into school. When Six asks what's up with him, he tries for a shaky smile.

"I read this magazine," he says, voice wobbling slightly. "And the writers were murdered over the weekend."

"Oh," is all Six says, a little shocked at the bluntness of his statement. "I'm… sorry, I guess."

Sam nods, pulling a copy of _They Walk Among Us_ out of his bag. Six has seen him with it a couple times, but it's just written by a bunch of conspiracy lunatics, so Six doesn't really think that Sam will be missing out on a lot.

"This is the last ever issue published," he says, sounding mournful. He hands it to her, as though expecting her to care. Six takes it just to not hurt his feelings in some way, briefly flicking through before her eyes catch sight of something and she stops dead.

The word _Mogodorian_ is what turns her body cold, sending shivers down her spine and making her struggle slightly for breath. Her hazel eyes flicker over the text as she takes the whole article in with a steady and ominous growing dread, because _someone knows_. Or rather, someone _did_ know, and now they've been murdered because of it, and more people could know, including Sam and…

Six runs, not even thinking of the consequences because she needs to get this article to Katarina, _now_, and she barely even registers Madeira noticing and calling after her, coming to run alongside her.

Six just runs.

000

Once back at her house, Six spills all to Katarina and Madeira, who both take it in with wide eyes.

"We should leave," Katarina says again, but Six shakes her head.

"No," she says, gasping. She may have enhanced abilities, but that doesn't mean that running doesn't always tire her out. "No, that will just make us look even more suspicious. Besides, the Mogs have killed the writers. They'll think that it's contained."

Katarina purses her lips, but doesn't argue.

"…I want you to stay home for the rest of the day," she says finally, fists clenched as she grips the magazine tightly. She turns to the small Hispanic girl. "You too, Madeira. I'm going to do some research, and I want to look into this, and I want the two of you to help."

Both girls nod, and as they walk off Madeira mutters something which makes Six's heart stop.

"You probably gave yourself away to Sam."

And those words are enough to make it feel as though a cold blade is piercing Six's heart.

000

Sam confronts Six by pulling her to the side when the bell goes and ensuring that they are alone in an empty corridor.

"What's the deal with you?!" he demands, with a hot sort of ferocity that makes Six blink in shock. She's never seen Sam so determined about something, not since she got to Paradise. "You're acting all secretive, so what's up?!"

Six tries to take lessons from Madeira, widening her eyes and blinking owlishly in what she hopes is an innocent look.

"What do you mean?" she asks, trying to create a fake air of nonchalance, but Sam is having none of it. He narrows his eyes and Six kind of wishes that he'd kept the glasses, so that he would find it harder to see.

"You and Madeira Harris are hiding something, something big," he says, voice shaking slightly with what could be either fear or rage. Perhaps both. "Binta William, too. It's something to do with that magazine, and _don't_ bother lying to me, because I will know." The statement is eerily similar to the one that Six said to Madeira when she confronted her at her house.

"Sam, I'm _not_ hiding anything," she announces, and maybe sort of hisses which really kinda gives her away but she's just so _desperate_ to keep Sam both as a friend an in the dark that it doesn't really occur to her right now. "Just drop it, okay?"

Sam says, "no, no, _not_ okay," right as a curious voice behind Six says, "What's going on?"

Both Sam and Six turn to see none other than Sarah Hart, of course, holding a toilet pass with wide eyes and a high ponytail. She shuffles a little nervously, moving forwards and looking a bit scared.

"Is everything okay?" Sarah asks, and Six wants to curse and maybe she does because isn't is just _perfect_ that Sarah's here right now?!

"It's not!" Sam practically spits. "Because _Maren_ here is keeping _serious_ secrets!"

Six doesn't even try to tell him that she's not because right now she's focused on Sarah – Sarah, who her relationship is still in the developing stages with, but that she still cares deeply about. Sarah, with her beautiful bubbly blonde hair and big blue eyes. Sarah, who she might just be in love with.

Sarah, who is looking at Six like she's betrayed her.

"… Maren?" she asks hesitantly, looking like she doesn't want to believe Sam but does anyway. "Is Sam – is he telling the truth? Are you hiding something big?"

Six wants to cry right now, she wants to scream and shout and rage that it's not right to be confronted like this, and the world can hear her, she doesn't care, but instead what she gets is her own lips sealed tightly shut as Sarah finally gets the courage to wander over and place her hand gently on Six's arm.

"Maren, whatever it is, you can tell me," she says gently, as though Six is a scared little cat that needs protection from the big bad dog. "I won't judge you, I swear. You can trust me." She glances between Six and Sam squeezing Six's arm. "You can trust _us_."

And damn it all but she does, Six _does_ trust the two of them, she trusts them and she loves Sam like he's her own brother and she loves Sarah a whole lot more than that, and she knows that it's time to open up and bare her soul.

So, that night, Six takes them to the woods, along with Madeira and Binta, and she shows them. She shows them her powers, she tells them her story, and when they accept her the way that they always have, she smiles and she just doesn't stop, because she has never felt happier.

And then she knows that she's going a bit too far, but the following night she does the same for Yuna and Macia, who simply smile and act as though they knew all along, and Six doesn't want Madeira or Sarah or Sam to have to keep this a secret so she brings Angie and Emily the following night, and the support that she has from the eight of them is enough to lighten her soul and help her to share her terrible burden.

And Binta talks about her family and heritage, about her own abilities, and how she felt when Angie stopped being so close with her, and Sam talks about his father, about their conspiracies and how he went missing and left him all alone, how he felt outcasted at the school, and Sarah talks about Mark and photography, finding 'Maren' and finding love, and Macia talks about coming to America, feeling lost but finding friends, similar for Yuna, and Emily talks about the bullying at her old school and Madeira talks about her dad and how he treats her, and Angie talks about finding love and how it lit up her whole world and…

And in turn, each of them bare their souls, open up their chests and put their hearts on full display and truly get to know each other. Angie and Madeira apologise to Binta, who simply accepts them and apologises herself. Six can't help but smile at that.

Because she – she has done this. She has united these people and allowed them to see each other, and she's sure that if anyone else came here in her position, any other number, Four or Nine perhaps, then the same would not have happened.

And there is Sarah, who Six kisses into the dark of the night and trusts whole-heartedly. Six thinks that no one has ever mattered to her as much as Sarah, not ever, not in her whole life, and no one ever will.

Six loves Sarah. This is a simple fact of life.

And she has friends, now, and a family, a whole bunch of people to care for and support her, and back at school she can be open and free – everyone shares smiles and hushed secrets, they can function together as one unit, and it's amazing, Six thinks, that she caused this. She made this happen, and screw Lorien because she has never been prouder in her life and this, _this_ is what she has been born to do.

000

And then, of course, Number Four arrives at Paradise to unite the numbers, and tears down everything that Six has worked so very hard to build.

* * *

**_As I said, Pt.2 is not the next chapter - it's coming as chapter 13, I think? I've actually got the pairings and summaries planned up to Chapter 25, but keep the suggestions coming, it's never bad to be over-prepared, and this way I can get a good hunk of some chapters written before it's time to post it. _**

**_If you're interested in what's coming up then just let me know and I might post the plans at the end of the next chapter. _**

**_Also, I want to have a body swap between two characters in Chapter 26 - any suggestions on which ones? _**

**_Thanks for reading, and please REVIEW! _**


	6. Gardyloo (Nine and Marina)

_**It took me several goes at writing this before I found a version that I liked, and this was my final decision. I like writing in 2nd person because it's just so much easier to connect, though I kept slipping into third whilst writing it so if you see any parts where it says 'she' instead of 'you' then just let me know and I'll correct it.**_

_**Stanrina was suggested by both .Reader and Guest, so thank you both for that! **_

_**Enjoy and review! **_

* * *

**Nine and Marina **

_Gardyloo – _'Warning Cry'. The vampires bite you and leave your best friend in a coma. If it weren't for Nine, your fellow vampire and guide to the life, you don't know if you'd be able to make it through.

* * *

Afterwards, someone gently places a blanket around your shoulders. You barely pay attention to it – you're focusing on staying by Naveen's side, because Naveen is your best friend and there's no way you are leaving until you know that he is alright.

There's a bustle of activity around you, but you barely notice as you climb out of the ambulance along with a whole host of paramedics. When you try to follow them to the operating room, a kind-looking nurse stops you. She looks regretful, but carefully informs you that you aren't allowed to go with them and that you'll have to wait with her.

Her name is Maggie, she tells you, and you can't even muster up the energy to tell her that you don't care.

She asks what your name is, and oddly enough, you tell her. Your name is Marina, and his name is Naveen, and _oh my god is he going to be okay?!_

It's hard to calm you down – half the time you are panicking, and half the time you are numb.

Eventually, a doctor comes to speak to you. He tells you that Naveen is stable, but that he is in a coma.

They don't know whether he will wake up or not.

You throw up, at some point, and Maggie wraps her arms round you in what's probably supposed to be a comforting manor. It doesn't _feel_ comforting. It feels suffocating.

The blanket around your shoulders is blue, you note vaguely.

000

The doctors want to do a quick check-up on you, to make sure that you aren't hurt either, and as one of them is checking you over she asks if you're having any pains anywhere. Her hair is blonde, tied up in a ponytail, her eyes a bright shining blue, like the sea, and she has a tan.

She tells you her name, and you promptly forget it.

In terms of pain, you make a vague gesture towards the side of your neck. The doctor checks that area and must see something strange because her eyes widen and her lips purse, but she forces a smile to come to her face and asks if you could wait there.

The female doctor brings a male doctor in, and tells you that his name is Hannu and this you remember. He takes a look at the same place the woman did, and he makes a similar face, but he is better at concealing his surprise and his smile seems a little more relaxed, a little less forced.

They tell you to leave but that you can come and see Naveen any time so long as it's within visiting hours, and the female doctor pulls you aside and asks if you can come and see her again in a couple weeks' time.

You agree because you'll have nothing better to do.

000

Home feels horribly empty, and you've been living alone for a little over a year now but never before has the flat felt so… lifeless before. Devoid of sound.

For some reason you can hear the sound of a couple apartments away, but you don't care right now so you shrug it off and go to make yourself some hot chocolate.

The first cup you make you drop, your hands are shaking so badly, and you take a couple seconds to just stare at the mess you've made as it dribbles across the carpet before going back and making another cup.

You don't bother to clean up.

When you finally sit down and take a sip of your hot chocolate, you have to spit it out in revulsion because it is suddenly _vile_. It doesn't taste nice and warm like it should – it tastes of metal and fire and it's disgusting, so disgusting that your stomach rolls and heaves, unable to stand it.

You throw up in the sink, and put the odd taste down to nerves.

000

The next day is the day you go to see Naveen, and when you get there you see that John is already there.

"Marina," he greets, walking towards you and wrapping his arms around you in a hug. You let him, focusing instead on staring at your best friend lying swamped in blankets on the bed, and you wonder why John's even bothering trying to interact with you.

You don't speak – just sit down on one of the hard plastic blue chairs and stare at Naveen, wondering why it had to be him in the coma and you awake and not the other way round. Naveen would know what to do get you to wake up, you're sure, but in this situation you are more than useless and it's killing you.

"Did you hear about those three doctors that work here?" John eventually asks, eating a chocolate bar and looking nervous, jiggling his foot up and down. "They were murdered last night. Well, two doctors and a nurse. Hannu, I think the guy's name was, and one of the girls was called Maggie…" He trails off when he sees that you aren't listening.

Later, you will reflect and realise that their throats were ripped open to contain all those who might have suspected about your new nature.

But you don't reflect right now – you just sit and stare.

000

Once visiting hours are up, John offers for you to come and eat tea at his and Sarah's place. You have no reason to say no, and you are quite hungry, so you accept.

Both friends are supportive and John cooks fish, which is usually your favourite. When you take a bite your stomach flips and you retch right onto the plate.

You apologise countlessly but the couple has already forgiven you. They help to clean you up and stay with you as you sit and stare at the wall, thinking about last night, and when the sky is getting dark and it is time for you to leave John drives you home.

Sarah looks worried as he escorts you out, but you find that you don't really care.

000

The revulsion seems to come with all food recently, you find. It tastes different, and not in a good way, as you discover when you try to devour a tub of comfort ice cream. It's normally yours and Naveen's for the nights when the loss of both your parents and your recent Aunt Adelina gets to be too much. Now he's in a coma and you don't even like it anymore.

You feel guilty about throwing it in the bin, but the horrible taste meant that you couldn't even swallow, could barely even stand having it in your _mouth_, and so you decide that it's got to go.

The same goes for drinks. Even water, which has always been the plainest of plain, now takes a considerable effort to drink, tasting of vomit and filling your nostrils with the scent of a horrible metallic tang.

You wonder what you're going to do, considering that you're starving.

000

There is a stranger waiting outside your flats one morning, and you simply walk past him, not even bothering to acknowledge his horribly flirty grin and cocky demeanour. He's not worth the time that you could be spending with Naveen.

"Hey, wait up!" he calls after you, and you sigh as you hear the pitter-patter of his feet on the asphalt. You turn to face him, taking in his long black hair is allowing to hang loosely around his shoulders and the bulging muscles beneath his hoodie sleeves. You arch an eyebrow briefly, impressed. Looks like he tries hard. "You're Marina, right?"

"How do you know my name?" you ask on instinct, before deciding that, you know what, it doesn't even matter. "Never mind, what do you want?"

The stranger looks a bit shocked by your manor, but he recovers quickly.

"I'm Nine," he states proudly, and you blink at the oddness of the name. Honestly, who calls their child after a _number_? "You're gonna have to come with me."

"I'm really not," you tell him, trying to take tips off of your close friend Maren's attitude with dealing with over-enthusiastic guys like this. You turn and start to walk away, stomach growling from hunger as you do, and 'Nine' seems to catch on to this.

"Food tastes horrible now, doesn't it?" he calls out behind you, making you halt in your tracks. _How does he…?_ But he doesn't stop there. "And you're really hungry, and thirsty, but you've got to force yourself to drink it because of how _bad_ it tastes."

He's been steadily moving towards you, and now he stops as he comes to move in front of you. He looks you straight in the eyes, deadly serious, and repeats his earlier statement about coming with him.

This time, you do.

000

"So," you say, exhausted beyond measure but still letting the shock of what Nine has explained at his flat stay on the forefront of your mind. "I've been bitten by a vampire." Nine nods, looking actually _amused_ at the way you're speaking. "And now _I'm_ a vampire." Nine nods again and, oh yeah, that is _definitely_ a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. "And you're a vampire, too." Another nod. You sigh. "I would say I need coffee, but…" You trail off, and Nine seems to get it.

He walks over to his fridge, opening it and peering inside. You try to peek in but he shifts to ensure you can't see, shooting you a smug grin as you frown.

As soon as his face is turned away, you allow a small smile to come to your lips.

"Here," he says, as he shuts the fridge and hands you something. It's a flask, bright pink, and he holds his hands up in mock surrender at the disbelieving look you send him. "Try some," he encourages and, hesitantly, expecting the same vulgar taste that has assaulted your mouth for the past couple days, you take a sip.

Instead of the horror you were expecting, you instead find a vaguely pleasant honey-like taste, with a tiny hint of what tastes like milk. It's a little sickly so you don't drink much, only about half of the flask, Nine watching you the entire time with irritatingly smug grin on his face.

"What do you think?" he asks once it's clear that you won't be drinking any more. You nod and allow a small smile to come to your face as you grip the flask tightly, as though it's your lifeline, fingers turning white.

"It was good. Thank you," you tell him, because you really are grateful, him showing you this… whatever it is. Then, "what was it?"

"Blood," he answers with, _way_ too simply, and you feel your body go cold and stiffen at the one small word with so much meaning.

Partly through disbelief and partly through desperation, you unscrew the lid and peer in. Apparently Nine wasn't joking, judging by the deep red colour of the liquid. You feel sick at what you've just digested.

You throw up again, and this time not because of the taste.

000

"I'm sorry, but you're a vampire now," he tells you, looking genuinely apologetic. You still refuse to meet his eyes, deliberately looking at the wall to his right. "This is what you _have_ to drink to survive."

"And what if I don't want to?" you ask, and Nine looks surprised.

"You don't want to live?"

"Of course I want to," you snap at him, because you're tired and angry and you've been tricked, but you realise that the words are true as you're saying them. You take a deep breath, the way your counsellor Hector Ricardo used to tell you to do when you lost your parents all those years ago. "I don't want to drink human blood. It's not right."

There is silence for a couple seconds before Nine speaks up.

"As a general rule," he says, and you find yourself meeting his eyes for the first time since you discovered what was in the flask. You notice that his eyes are dark and full of pain and anger – no, rage – but also kindness, and it is that which makes you able to actually like him. "We have to kill about once a month to collect enough blood to sustain ourselves."

You flinch at the word 'blood' instinctively, you've always been squeamish, but you know that if this really is your situation now then you'll have no choice but to suck it up, so you straighten your shoulders and try to harden your posture, the way you've seen Maren do countless times. Nine continues.

"What I tend to do is go after the people that I feel deserve it. Murderers, rapists, people like that, and generally the ones who've escaped justice. You could do the same, if you wanted."

"Wouldn't that make me just as bad as them?" you ask quietly, because you've always had a firm belief in the fact that no one has the right to take a life and to do so would send you straight to hell. But you're a vampire now so maybe you're going there anyway, no matter what you do.

Nine just shakes his head, looking as though he believes his words wholeheartedly.

"Not if you're doing it to survive," he informs in what is his honesty, actually _daring_ to smile at you when you shoot him a desperate look. "We don't have a choice. They did, and they chose the wrong one. At least we can try and snag a bit of justice as we feed."

He says the word _'feed'_ so casually, like you'd be eating a baguette and not a person, and it makes you shiver at the horror movie you've now found yourself caught up in.

"What if… What if I can't find someone who deserves it?" you ask hesitantly, terrified of the answer. Nine's posture changes, looking a little less cheerful and a little more regretful – and while the smile stays, it isn't in his eyes and the grin itself loses some of its edge.

"Then you have to find someone who doesn't," he informs quietly, and you just nod slowly, knowing that you'll never be able to bring yourself to do it.

000

Nine continues to visit your flat, being your self-proclaimed 'guide to the vampire life'. Oddly enough, you find that you don't mind. He's been a real help, and the only thing that's kept you from starving to death thus far, so you can't really bring yourself to be mad at him.

Naveen shows no improvement, but he isn't going downhill, either, so at least there's that. Sometimes Nine tags along when you go to visit him, and whenever he does you are reminded by the three people that had their throats ripped out and you're too scared to ask if it was him.

On one such occasion of him coming, too, you encounter John whilst at the hospital.

"Hi, Marina," he greets, before he looks at Nine and gets an odd look on his face. "Um, do I know you?"

"I'm Stanley," Nine abruptly greets, startling you into staring at him with wide eyes. _He can choose any name, and he chooses __**Stanley**__?_ "I'm Marina's boyfriend."

You flush, the colour deepening at the look John sends you – confused, but pleased.

"Oh. Well it's nice to meet you, Stanley," he states, before turning and nodding at you. "Marina."

He leaves and you know that Sarah will be ringing you about this sometime soon.

000

A couple days later, Nine knocks on the door and strolls right in when you answer it. You blink at the spot where he was standing, but you've found that you've grown used to Nine's antics by now, so you simply follow him and watch as opens your fridge.

"Still full of junk!" he proclaims, slamming it loudly. You flinch slightly, but you don't think that he's angry – that's just Nine for you. He shakes his head, looking amused. "Honestly, Marina, when are you going to get rid of all that crap?"

"It's not crap," you say carefully, moving closer towards him as he rolls his eyes and dumps a large plastic bag on your kitchen counter. You point. "What _is_ that?"

"Food," is all answers with, winking at you as he walks past. "Make sure to save me some!" he calls, and he shuts the door behind him as leaves your flat.

You stare at the bag hesitantly, knowing what's in there but not wanting to look. When you finally muster the courage to do so, you see exactly what you expected – tubs and containers and flasks filled with fresh, sticky, human blood, but that fact that you knew it would be there doesn't make you feel any less sick.

000

You're angry at the world and everything in it, so you decide that now would be a good time to clean out that fridge.

Row by row, you go through everything in there, holding the bin up and just dumping it all in. You slide food across and into the garbage without a second thought, things like milk and eggs that once would have made you happy to eat but now just make you want to throw up. You toss in the ice cream and fish-fingers from the freezer alike, wanting to puke when a box tears open and you catch a whiff of the smell of human food.

It's funny how quickly you've stopped thinking of yourself as human.

Once all the vile, repulsive stuff has gone, it's time to replace it with the stuff that may be easier to consume but the thought of it makes you feel no less ill. You practically shove all of the blood in there, wanting to vomit the entire time, and you wonder how it is that your life has been reduced to constantly wanting to hurl.

When you're done you stare at all the _red_ that now resides in your fridge. It makes you want to cry and you even feel the tears building up and threatening to fall, so you shut the fridge and lean back against it, shutting your eyes and trying to hold it all in.

You're unsuccessful.

000

"You know, I've been doing your shopping for you," Nine says casually one day when it's getting close to the next time he'll have to 'shop', lounging about on the sofa. You pass him a flask and try not to look as he downs the blood with much more ease than you're ever going to be able to. "Maybe you should consider trying to do your own."

You just shake your head – you know that by shopping he means killing, and selfish as it is asking him to murder two people a month, you still don't want to do one yourself.

"Oh, come on, Marina," he whines, pouting like a little child, holding his now-empty flask out. You take it and place it gently in the washing bowl, shivering a little at the drops of red that drift out and into the water. It's still hard to ignore what's in those flasks, and even harder to let go of how quickly Nine drinks them, eagerly. "It's hard finding two."

"… Maybe in a couple months," you finally say, regretting the words as soon as they're out of your mouth. "I'll start in a couple months."

Nine grins at you, and you wonder if it _will _be so bad, with him around.

"I'll help when you do," he announces, and you don't doubt for a single second that he will.

000

The following day, you get a call telling you that Naveen has passed away during the night.

You politely thank the caller, put the phone down and wander over to sit on your couch.

You stare at the wall.

Then you put your head in your hands and you cry.

000

The following days pass in a kind of blurry haze, and you spend them numbly preparing funeral arrangements. The last of Naveen's real family, his grandfather Devdan, passed away when the two of you were fourteen, so you display your support towards Grahish Sharma, Naveen's ex-military foster father. Grahish smiles gratefully at you and asks if you're going to be bringing anyone to the funeral, and for some reason you answer without hesitation that you're going to be bringing your boyfriend Stanley Worthington.

Nine himself has been supportive, and he doesn't raise the issue of you getting your own food, perhaps because he senses that dead people are currently a sensitive topic. He found out by walking in on you crying your eyes out, and there were no words – he just held you as your shoulders shook and you smudged his shirt with your tears.

All too soon the date of the funeral rolls around, and, oddly enough, you find yourself dressing as a classy vampire from the movies would – black dress and all. You bring a packet of tissues because you're sure that there's no way you can hold it in the whole time, not when the tears are leaking out already.

Nine comes with you, and you're glad for the moral support. He links arms with you, and you find that you're not angry at him for this – you're actually quite glad.

You're numb the whole way through, listening to the stories and people crying. Maren speaks, and so does John, and you get the offer but you decline. You wouldn't be able to do it, you're certain.

At the end you look at Nine and say, "tonight."

He understands.

000

"That guy," Nine says, pointing at the man they are stalking. "Raped and murdered a young girl in an alleyway a few nights ago. He was found not guilty at court, but a friend of mine says they saw him doing it. He got away with it."

"And you want me to kill him," you state, turning to Nine as he nods, looking grim. He hesitates a bit.

"You don't have to do this, if you don't want," he offers, looking deadly serious for one of the only times since you've met him. "If you aren't ready, I'll understand."

You stare at him, and for a moment it's like you're looking into his soul, seeing how much he's hurting and how much it hurts him that you are, too.

You kill the man, and only once you have do you regret it. You sit over his body, staring down at him, and start to scream.

000

Nine helps drag both you and the body back to his flat. He goes out and gets another one for you to eat, stashing it in a separate room that he keeps for exactly this reason, and you spend the whole time with your head in your hands, wondering what you've done.

"Damnit, Marina!" he shouts at you later, and you flinch at the raw and uncontrolled _anger_ that you see in his face. He points at you accusingly. "You knew that you weren't ready, but you went ahead and tried it anyway!"

"…I'm sorry," is all you say quietly, voice trembling. "I just… Naveen, he…"

Nine's face softens and he walks over placing his hand gently over your own.

"I know you are," he says quietly, and his thumb starts rubbing circles on your wrist. He sighs. "Look, I'll carry on doing it for you. I don't mind."

You nod, and close your eyes, trying not to think of the man you killed.

000

When Nine kisses you, you aren't even surprised.

He's clearly been holding it back for a while now, not wanting to come onto you so soon after Naveen (oh,_ Naveen_), but it looks like he hasn't been able to ignore your lips any longer.

You kiss him back.

His lips taste like blood, and you find that you don't even mind.

* * *

**_Next up is One/Six magical dystopia au fic, if I ever get round to writing it!_**

**_Hope you enjoyed, and please review! _**

**_On my profile is a list of the chapters, pairings and summaries that I have planned. Go check that out if you're interested! _**


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